Dave's Archive of Lost Ideas
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20 August 2007 Could You Live Without Buying Chinese Made Goods?
Almost every morning, I have an online routine I follow. There are certain websites I hit daily, one of them being The Chicago Tribune. Sunday, there as an interesting article that caught my eye. A woman had written a book relating her and her family's experience trying to not buy Chinese-made goods for a year. Here's the full article.
Her epxeriment grew from her feelings of frustration after seeing that 25 of 39 Christmas gifts were Made in China. She decided after that that she and her family would not purchase Chinese-made goods for a year. It was more difficult than she thought it would be. Now, I've thought of how many things I buy that are made by our friends in the Far East. Too many of them. But it is smoemthing I'm aware of and will buy non-Chinese if I have an alternative. Finding that alternative is often not easy. Especially in items of an electronic nature. What's a geek to do? Buy the alternative whenever possible and encourage others to do the same. That's the end of my preaching. |
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18 August 2007 Phone Hack Update
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...
After I had applied a couple of modifications, I hooked the iPhone up to sync. And while it saw the phone, it only recognized it as a 365mb device. Not right at all. So I ended up wiping it and restoring. No real loss. But kind of a bummer none the less. |
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17 August 2007 Callwave Visual Voicemail
One of the iPhone's niftiest features is the ability to access voicemails in random order. No waiting through 4 messages just to get to the one you really want. Callwave.com offers that service for nearly any cell phone with nearly any carrier.
How it Works Sign up for an account, follow the directions for having Callwave set as your voicemail system, set delivery options, record a greeting and you're set. Download the Dashboard widget, install, and you're ready to use. |
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16 August 2007 Hacking the iPhone
Those that know me are probably wondering what kind of hacks I've done to my iPhone. Well, a couple. I've not really had lots of time to play except for the weekends. The first weekend I was just getting to know the phone itself and last weekend I forgot the power supply for my MacBook so I was limited in what I was able to do.
So I've been playing around with iFuntastic a bit. Seems to do what it does well. I've been working to get beyond putting MP3 ringtones on the phone so I've been reading The iPhone Hacking Kit, step by step on Macworld's site. It's good but needs a little polish. So far I'm at the point where I have SSH ability. I'm working toward having the ability to run Erica Sadun's screen capture utility. That will make life a little more interesting. I'll try to do a short update on what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and the results whenever my progress warrants a post. More to come, stay tuned. |
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15 August 2007 Shifting Gears: Into the World of Food and Cooking
This summer, I've found more time to indulge myself in cooking. In particular I've got what I believe is an excellent pork sparerib recipe. Like most pork barbecue, the secret is in the dry rub and allowing the meat to soak in that flavor. When I'm sure it's ready for public consumption, I'll most likely post it here.
After coating the brisket with the dry rub, I put in in the refrigerator and let it soak up the flavors overnight. In the morning, I placed it in a roasting pan and then into a 250° oven. I made the mop to brush on during the day and let it slowly roast. OK, while not as good as letting it roast over a nice hardwood fire with soaked hickory chips in it, it did smell awfully good when I got home. So good, I couldn't resist cutting off a chunk to sample immediately. And wow, talk about tender. The meat would barely cut it was simply falling apart. My only regret is I didn't make homeade barbecue sauce. Oh well, next time. |
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13 August 2007 iPhone Update: Week One
Alright, I've had this a week and change now. What are my thoughts now? Pretty much the same. I really like this phone. I am going to repeat the criticisms I left out last post just to get them on the record. Some ofthese are being written about, others are ones I came up with on my own.
More things I Like: |
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7 August 2007 Three Days with the iPhone
Saturday morning, I made the trek to Rockford for some personal business. Not the least of which was to purchase an iPhone at the local AT&T store.
I made my way home without incident, barely able to contain my excitement. I mean, this is the hottest gadget to hit the market since... I quickly opened the packaging, another great job by the group at Apple that does these things. Upon opening the box, I found the iPhone itself, a small amount of printed documentation, a polishing cloth for the iPhone's screen, a power supply, mini dock, and a USB cable. After painlessly activating the phone via iTunes, I watched as the phone began it's first sync. Not a lot came over as I don't use iCal or AddressBook much anymore. But enough came through to get an idea of how things work. Pictures sync'd fine with Kodak's EasyShare, surprising me by completely bypassing iPhoto. So, after using this device for a couple of days, I've got a few comments and suggestions. I'll generally be keeping away from the points already made and concentrating on some things I've not yet seen mentioned. First I think that the Landscape mode that is available in Safari and the iPod player must be made available to all applications. In particular, viewing many type of attachment files would be greatly served by viewing in Landscape perspective. Next, Apple should pull a feature from the Newton recipe book (Sorry Mr. Jobs) and make the multiple numeric keypad formats available. You see, the Newton would display the numeric keypad most applicable to the situation automatically. But it also gave you the option to change that. the types of numeric keypads available are a telephone-type and a 10-key calculator type. The way the Newton accomplished this was by simply tapping the keyboard icon onscreen. It was a simple yet elegant touch. And the iPhone has a button there that allows access to the symbols as well as switching back and forth between the numbers and letters layouts. The inability to space back to a specific letter to make a correction. Unless I'm missing something, you can only go to the tail end of the word, delete, then type the remainder of the word over to correct mistakes. OK, I was wrong about this. I just hadn't figured it out yet. The iPhone needs a better way to delete Mail messages other than the swipe or the Edit button. The swipe works well but it messes the screen up. See the note below about the screen. More customizable settings. Including how frequent the mail is checked and being able to assign specific sounds to specific actions. Support syncing over Bluetooth. I was genuinely shocked Apple actually shipped the iPhone without this capability. Now on to things I do like: The Cover Flow view in iPod. I know it's not new, but it sure looks cool on the iPhone's screen. The way SMS messages are arranged like the messages going back and forth in iChat. Why reinvent the wheel? The included headset and handsfree works really well. Sound quality is excellent and I can wear the earbuds without pain. No small feat, I assure you. I bought a set of $150 Shure earbuds for my iPod, best money I ever spent. If Shure came out with a similar setup woth a handsfree for the iPhone, I'd buy them again. The screen. Gosh the screen is so clear, everything looks fantastic. Like any phone that comes in contact with my skin, the bright shiny appearance is quickly dulled by the oils from my skin. Kudos to Apple for supplying a polishing cloth. The wireless access works very well. I've already got 6 access points set up and I'm in a small town. No excuse folks, wireless is here to stay. I find the way the iPhone's interface is setup to be, well, comfortable. It's not a major departure from OS X, so I'm used ot it. Many of the 'applications' are little more than Dashboard widgets like those found in OS X Tiger. That's not to demean their usefulness. On the contrary, they're very useful. But it's not like having to learn a whole new cell phone because I have familiarity with OS X so this feels very comfortable. The zoom in feature is incredible. While it could always be faster, it's smooth and very clear. Viewing documents onscreen is a very handy thing given that most phones don't have the ability to view documents and those that do suck at it. It's really amazing how useful the iPhone was to me on it's first day at work. I was able to keep up with email, monitor the user forums, and kept in touch all afternoon despite my not being at my desk. I think this is the real advantage for a device like this. As I said before, my comfort level with this is such that I didn't have to think about how I was using the phone, rather I concentrated on what I was doing with the phone. An important distinction and one familiar to users of Macintosh computers. |
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16 June 2007 Bluetooth 2.1 Coming
According to this CNN article, a new version of Bluetooth will soon be making its debut.
Good news, I say. Faster, easier pairing. Great news for most Windows setups. Last time I tried pairing up to my notebook PC via Bluetooth, I was erm, unsucessful. While the above article is OK, I was hoping for more technical details. For instance, will I be able to have more than a single device paired to a BT2.1 computer? Under 2,0, there's no way to have a headset as well as a phone paired up to my MacBook. Kind of a bummer. Nonetheless, it's a good thing to move forward. |
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22 May 2007 TV Show Update
Awhile back, I wrote at length about the fall tv season, some returning shows, my favorites, etc..
Now, at the end of this season's run, it's time to review and look ahead to the summer season. First up is The Sopranos. It's all over after the last two episodes air on June 3rd and 10th respectively. All sorts of speculation is out there about how it will all end. I personally hope it all ends in a bloody hail of gunfire, with no one left standing. Like in Scarface. We'll all know in a few weeks Jericho This show was one of my early season favs. It held up well through the first part of the season, was put on hiatus for a bit, then returned. It was never the same so it's been cancelled. Rightfully so, I must say. Grey's Anatomy As Maureen Ryan states in her latest Grey's entry on the Tribune's web site. There was just too much going on in the season finale. And if Christina didn't want to get married, why didn't she just tell Burke? Go figure. Heroes Did anyone else feel the finale was extremely anti-climatic? I mean, they could've made the death of Sylar a little more interesting. Yes, it's good that he's gone, but there was just no style to his demise. |
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17 January 2007 Windows Vista: Just Say No? Jim Coates write the technology column for the Chicago Tribune. Although he is definitely a Windows guy, he is pretty level-headed when it comes to Microsoft, as evidenced here. In this week's column, a reader ask if their PIII system will run Vista. Jim minces no words and tells the reader, "No." Simply put, this version of Windows is more dependent on new technologies than any previous version of Windows has been. Especially in the graphics card arena. "To summarize: Windows Vista needs a PC with a 1 gHz chip or better and a 60-80 gb hard drive is all but essential. Be particularly sure that the video card has a stiff amount of memory of 128 mb or more, and I'll wager that those who try to get by with 512 megabytes of RAM soon will find themselves at Best Buy's memory counter for an upgrade to 1 gigabyte or more." |
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16 January 2007 Coke in the Morning Strange. Having consumed a Diet Coke nearly every morning for the last 20 years, someone has finally noticed. Reading this article was like looking at my own life. Never a coffee drinker despite having tried while in the military, I always got my morning rush from a Coke or Diet Coke. I have on occasion flirted with Mountain Dew and really do enjoy the rush a 20 0z. can of Amp gives me. But I always seem to find my way back to my dark master, Diet Coke. Now I read that southern women are a common group that's been drink Diet Coke or regular Coke in the morning for decades? I'm not sure what reaction I have to that. But as I sit here typing this in the early hours of Monday morning, I sure am glad I've taken this road. |
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15 January 2007 Where are my tortillas? Well, it had to happen. Now those driving those horrible gas guzzling SUVs are now going to be blamed for causing countless of poor Mexican people to go hungry due to a shortage of corn from which the Mexican staple tortillas are made. Don't know about you but I'm stocking up. ;) |
 14 January 2007 Momofuku Ando, 1910-2007 This past week also saw the paassing of Momofuku Ando. Not exactly a household name, right? Definitely not. You may not know his name, but you know his invention: instant ramen noodles. And I for one am grateful for this invention as these noodles sustained me during the last part of the 1980s along with popcorn. Thanks Momofuku, you shall be missed. |
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13 January 2007 Week in Review What a week. First the roller coaster ride that seems to preview MacWorld each January seemed more intent than ever to give us a ride to remember. We were supposed to see new Mac minis, speed bumped MacBooks, and huge widescreen TVs. What we got is iPhone (or ApplePhone as Robert X. predicts it will eventually be renamed), AppleTV and a new Airport Extreme base station. The iPhone was out nearly 24 hours before it seemed everyone and their cousin began questioning the device. I find it fascinating how they can be so sure about a product they have never seen, let alone used. I'm not ready to pass judgement on iPhone. I want to wait and see how things are when it ships in June and more importantly, what people are saying after using it for six months. Then I may just buy one. AppleTV looks interesting. It seems like a good product for a home theater setup. As I already have a Mac mini hooked up to my TV, I'm not quite sure of what use it would be for me. I already use Front Row, have access to tons of trailers via the QuickTime trailer site, and have 500gb of attached storage for TV shows and movies. So I can't hook up and watch a video stream from iTunes on another networks computer. I'm not sure I'm missing out here. Don't get me wrong, I'm an Apple fan boi, but why would someone spend $300 for waht IMHO is a crippled mini when they can get the whole enchilada for roughly $650? The Airport Extreme base station now matches both the mini and the AppleTV in its new form factror. Kind of a square, flat box. Not much to it. Except that the USB port now allows for the hookup of a hard drive. Creating instant network attached storage (NAS) that's accessible wirelessly. No, nothing to see here. Move along. And since Apple's making it, we know that it''l just work. |
 4 January 2007 R&B Legend James Brown Dies So why is this here? Well, I've really grown to love James' work the last 5 years or so. I remember hearing him during his 70s heyday, the great scene in The Blues Brothers, then having the pleasure of rediscovering him. To steal a line from Slashdot, "Truly an American icon." |
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30 November 2006 Speeding Up SSH Logins
I use SSH (secure shell) every day. And like most admins, I log into a variety of machines. A few days ago, Mac OS X Hints ran an entry for speeding that process up. I take no credit for anything beyond passing this along.
Open up a terminal session (I like iTerm) and issue the following commands: cd .ssh pico (or other editor of choice) configType in the host, username, Hostname and port number. If you are using ssh keys, you will not need to enter a password. host keymaker user dave HostName davesmachine.com port 22I chmodded the config file as 755 and it works perfectly. Just type in ssh (name of host from config file) and you're in like Flint. |
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13 November 2006 A Short Rant
Why do some torrent sites insist on having you download the .torrent file directly from their site? Most of them require registration, which can really slow you down. Worse, it takes me back to the self-serving days of the BBS SysOp whose power reigned supreme on his site. Not all bad, but it always smelled to me.
Now we have folks whose .torrents are posted on sites like mininova, allow them to be downloaded from other sites, then give you an error message once the torrent is actually started. Most of these sites also enforce a downlaod to upload ratio. Like I need someone to tell me to leave my torrents open. I do, I almost always leave them open full-bore for at least 12 hours after my download is complete. Most files I download upload 3 to 4 times their original size. Ratios? Please. Whenver I stumble across one of these .torrents by mistake, I just throw them away and look for another torrent file. No games for me guys. |
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5 November 2006 A Cool Front Row Feature
Front Row has a nifty feature I've recently discovered. Keep in mind, this isn't earth-shattering but I figured it's worth pointing out.
If you are using a Mac for TV show playback like I am, you will most certainly find yourself running out of space at some point. Yes, even I run out of hard drive space. On my first drive at least. So one way I thought would be good to get around that would be to burn .AVI files to DVD as a data disc. I could then mount the disc, drag a shortcut of the disc into my Movies folder (~/Movies) and then use Front Row to play them. THat works as expected. The nifty thing Front Row does is that it only shows those folders on volumes that are actually mounted. That way, you could have a hundred shortcuts in your Movies folder, but Front Row will only show active file paths. Very cool indeed. Apple continues to impress me with Front Row. The more I use it, the more I like it. I would love someone to explain why my Core Duo mini has difficulty playing some HD .AVI files. Strange but it does. The same files play perfectly on my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. |
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2 November 2006 rsync backup
I've been working to create an active sync solution for my company's end users. This project has been something I've had in use for awhile now but have had the need to make it a bit more refined.
For those not familiar with rsync, take a look at this PDF of a presentation I did. it covers most of the basics. One thing I was recently was reminded of is how you can take a file that contains a command line (with any associated arguments or options, and append the .command suffix to it. This will make a double-clickable file that a non-technical user can run to perform a particular task. In this case, backing up incrementally over the internet using rsync. Note, you shold use SSH-keygen to generate the neessary key to allow for secure login adn transfer without telling the end-user a password to the backup server. The whol thing looks like this:  |
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10 October 2006 Breast Cancer Awareness Month
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Lots of events are being held to race funds and awareness. Check here for a list of some events, and support the cause.
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3 October 2006 Did You Know?
A fun list of things I didn't know before.
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26 September 2006 Front Row
I got the mini project set up with an Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse this weekend. Worked perfectly. Or as Mac users like to brag, "It just works." :)
Slowly, I am consolidating all the content I have onto a single drive. Easier said than done as I have files strewn across a number of drives. Some in Firewire cases, some bare. Hopefully, in a few weeks I can have everything in one spot. I've also been working on naming conventions and just how to have the file hierarchy set up. All good questions when dealing with the number of shows and episodes that I am. |
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25 September 2006 Mac mini as a Video Source
I've finally gotten to the point where I've begun to use the Mac mini I bought back in February as a video source on my TV.
I've had everything I needed such as the DVI adapter, the mini iteself, and a nice big TV. The stumbling block seems to have been content. That's no longer an issue. I have no less than 142 GB of TV shows in AVI and MPEG format. Here's a listing of some of the shows I've got: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Boston Legal Building the World Trade Center CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Chapelle's Show Comedy Now Uncensored Cook Like a Chef Dane Cook's Tourgasm Deadliest Catch Desperate Housewives Did Aliens Build the Pyramids Dirty Jobs Doctor Who 2005 Drop Dead Gorgeous Entourage Everyday Italian Fast inc Feasting on Asphalt Ghost Whisperer Good Eats Greys Anatomy Ham on the Street Harry Birdman Attorney at Law Hell's Kitchen Hogan Knows Best House Iron Chef Iron Chef America Jamie's Great Italian Escape Kidnapped Late Show with David Letterman Licence to Grill Lucky Louie Magical Egypt Monk Music Videos Mythbusters Nova Prison Break Project Runway Psych Puppets Who Kill Rescue Me Richard Jeni - A Big Steaming Pile Of Me Robot Chicken Rules of Engagement Secret World of Las Vegas Sleeper Cell South Park Supergroup Survivor The 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards The IT Crowd The New Adventures of Old Christine The Shield The Simpsons The Sopranos The Surreal Life The Unit Trailer Park Boys Vanished West WingSo I have no excuse for saying, "There's nothing on!" |
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24 September 2006 Monolingual
Monolingual is a little OS X application that allows you to remove unused language files from installed applications on your hard drive. It's not much to look at but it is very effective. I saved a gigabyte of drive space. And who can argue with that.
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23 September 2006 Men in Trees
I got my first surprise of the new TV season last night. It's an ABC show called Men in Trees. A woman (played by Anne Heche) is in Alaska writing a book about men. It's cute, well written, and funny. Clocking in a 1/2 an hour, it's a good watch.
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18 September 2006 You Send It
You Send It is a handy service for those time that you need to send a file to someone and either it's too big for you to send or to big for them to receive.
Simple to use, sign up for a free account, fill out a simple web form, select the file to send, and it's on its way. You Send It is so easy to use, it's actually difficult to describe. But it works, and works well. If you need features like tracking when or if a file was downloaded, You Send It offers reasonably-priced paid plans as well.  |
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17 September 2006 House, M.D.
House M.D, recently started it's third season on the Fox Network. A friend of mine tried to get me to watch by giving me the enitre first season's collection of AVIs on a couple of DVDs back in 2005, but I didn't bite.
That, was a mistake. I watched the third season premiere this past week. And was blown away. It was well-written, had humor, drama, and Hugh Laurie is great in the title role. So, I've started watching the first season. And yes, I'm definitely hooked. And looking forward to watching the second season. |
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16 September 2006 I Love my Razr!
A couple years back, I wrote about my experience of having a new cell phone. Well, my contract was up so I set out get s a new phone and plan.
Now I shared my previous plan with 3 other people, we never had any major issues with the number of minutes used. In fact, we never really utilized all we were paying for. Keeping that fact in mind, I decided to go with Cingular's AllOver 550 plan. It's $59.99 with 2 lines and $9.99 for the additional line we needed. My hope is that I will be saving some substantial fundage each month over our last plan. The Phone I made arrangements to meet my two compadres at the local Cingular store. We looked at a few phones and decided on the LG CG-350. It's a flip-phone, has a nice keyboard that I could feel my way around, and it supports Bluetooth. One of our group decided against a new phone, opting to stay with his barely used Sony Ericcson T616. After about 30 minutes, we were on or way, new phones in hand. I immediately started to work with it. My Logitech Bluetooth headset paired up with no problems. "I like this phone." Then I tried to pair the phone with my PowerBook for wireless net access. And tried. I tried pairing it with my Dell notebook using a D-Link USB Bluetooth module. No dice. So I began looking through Google search results about the phone. Turns out it won't pair with a computer and is useless for anything similar to that. It pairs with headsets and allegedly Bluetooth printers. Talk about useless, not to mention to 3 hours I spend trying to get it to work. And darn it, I really liked the sound quality of the phone, the way it felt it my hand, the keypad layout, even the keypad's backlight as a nifty looking blue. That weekend, I began to search eBay for phones and settled on a Motorola Razr, which was my first choice originally. I just couldn't see coughing up $200 for a phone again. After bdding on one seller's auction time after time, i ended up with a silver Razr, shipped it was under $100. I also bought a Kodak Easy Share 340 digital camera from the same seller for about $80. Fast forward to the next Thursday. My box shows up in only 4 business days, not bad for a shipment that originated in California. I break out the phone, and get it charging so I can play with it later. And play I do. After letting it charge a couple hours, I oulled the SIM out of the LG and called Cingular to make the switch. After a few minutes, the phone was up and operational. I was able to pair it with my PowerBook, no problem. iSync worked flawlessly. The only difficulty I ran into was the phone wouldn't let me Browse the phone's directory structure. At least until I restarted the phone. Strange. I paired my headset up, again no problem. Everything just worked. So after a few days, I started scouring eBay for accessories like a car charger, an extra travel charger for work, a black ruggedized case, a spare battery, a USB cable and Motorola Phone Tools, and a power Y-cable. All of which ran me about $50 in total. Not a bad day's shoppping expedition. I'll follow-up with another post at some point to relate how things are going. But no doubt, even for a 2-year old phone, Motorola's Razr is a winner. |
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15 September 2006 The New Fall TV Season
My take on the new fall TV season
Some of my favorites are back: all times are Central
Shows like
HBO says a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm is coming. but I haven't heard when it kicks off. Probably in January as we're waiting until March for the new season of The Sopranos. Food Network continues to be a favorite stop for me. They had Alton Brown do a 4-part series over the summer titles Feasting on on Asphalt. The show's run was painfully short. Hopefully, FTV will have Alton do a longer run of shows for next season. Good Eats continues to be one of my favorite shows as is Iron Chef America. I've also learned alot from Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian as evidenced by my recent day-long session making homemade lasagna, I also started watching Trailer Park Boys, Puppets Who Kill, The IT Crowd, Drop Dead Gorgeous, and a number of one-off specials from Canadian and British TV. One new show I got a preview of over the summer was Jericho (CBS, Wednesday 7 pm). At first, it seemed like yet another formulaic drama. After watching the whole pilot, I think I may be hooked on it. I won't say anything beyond I didn't recognize Gerald McRaney at all so tune in and take a look. I also got hooked on Dane Cook this summer. His humor is great and Tourgasm was a blast! |
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14 September 2006 iTunes 7
Apple released an updated version of iTunes as part of their "It's Showtime!" event this past Tuesday.
Some of the more interesting features (from my perspective):
Imagine this, you have a folderful of music you want to import into iTunes. Not hard, you say. Well, what if the folder in question is an iTunes-organized folder? And each artist and each album are safely nestled into one another. What an easy way to import that? Now imagine being able to select Import from Folder... from the File menu, pointing to your Music folder and letting iTunes do the rest. It could make sure there are no duplicates as well. Cool idea? I think so. |
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12 July 2006 Cingular's EDGE Connectivity
I've been working with my Cingular cell phone to get internet connectivity for my PowerBook. It's really very easy after you have the correct script for your phone. While I'm not going to go into that particular facet here, remember Google is your friend.
Configure your Network settings. Go to your System Preferences/Network Choose show Bluetooth First tab TCP/IP: Configure IPv4: Set to PPP DNS Servers: 66.209.10.201 66.209.10.202 Next tab PPP: (NOTE: Case SENSITIVE) Service Provider: CINGULAR Account Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM Password: CINGULAR1 Telephone Number: (leave blank) Then click on the PPP Options button and uncheck "Send PPP echo packets" and "Use TCP header compression", Bluetooth Modem tab: Modem: Choose the appropriate setting for your phone. "APPLY" the settings and dial. |
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11 July 2006 Rebuilding an Entourage Mail File Occasionally, it is a good thing to allow Entourage to rebuild your mail database. Rebuilding the database helps ensure the data integrity of the file and also recovers space from deleted messages. Open Entourage and Empty your Deleted items folder. This may take some time. Quit Entourage and logout of your machine, then log back in. Open /Applications/Microsoft Office X. To invoke the Database Utility, click the Entourage icon in your dock and IMMEDIATELY press the Option key on your keyboard. Office v.X users will see this dialog:  Select Typical Rebuild, the click the Rebuild button. The rebuild Utility will begin the rebuild process. When completed, you will see this dialog:  Click the OK button. The utility will quit. You may now open Entourage as you normally would. Once you are sure that everything is OK, you can safely delete the backup files the Rebuild Utility makes and stores in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office X Identities/Main Identity and will be named Old Database and Old Database Cache. You can safely delete both files. Office 2004 users will see this dialog:  Make sure you select Rebuild Database, the click Continue. The program will proceed with the rebuild process and will display this dialog.  When the process is complete, you will see this dialog.  Click Done and the utility will quit. You may then open Entourage as you normally would. Once you are sure that everything is OK, you can safely delete the backup files the Rebuild Utility makes and stores in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/ and will be named something like Main Identity [Backed up 4-21-2006 17.58]. |
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17 May 2006 Dick Dale in Concert
I went and saw legendary surf guitarist Dick Dale in Rockford last night. He played the Midway Theater in the downtown section of Rockford. We were kinda of late having missed the Goodyear Pimps completely. Knowing this, we weren't sure how things might go. Luckily, there were good seats still open and we found ourselves sitting stage right in the front row. After a 25 minute delay, Dick hit the stage. As I'm not familiar with much of his material outside of "Miserlou" I wasn't sure of what to expect. What I got was a solid set of his hits, a few covers thrown in ( The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" and Peggy Lee's "You Give me Fever") and some really obscure stuff like his short Johnny Cash medley. It was a fun show even with the late start. Check for tour dates at dickdale.com.
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13 May 2006 Rabid Vegetarians Demand (and receive) Censorship
Having a number of vegetarian freinds, I read this article with great amusement. It seems the web isn't free from some of the same stupid social pressures the rest of the world is.
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13 May 2006 AppleCared: My Life Inside Apple and AppleCare
Adam Knight has posted a great article detailing his 4+ years working the phones in the AppleCare sypport center in Austin, TX.
While I'm not in complete agreement with all his statements, as a support professional I have to empathize with him. Great reading. http://www.afterapple.com/adam-knight/blog/2006/05/applecared-my-life-inside-apple-and-applecare |
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12 May 2006 Mac OS X UI Discussions
Over on Macintouch (still one of my favorite sites arfter all these years), there is an interesting discussion going on about OS X user interface issues..
While some of the points have some validity, I've read some of the comments and had to physically catch myself to keep from falling off my chair and rolling with laughter. Some of these comments are so ridiculous I can barely contain myself. "OS9 networking worked flawlessly and instantly." Mount a network drive, open a folder that has more than a few dosen items in it, now wait. And wait. And wait. Networking always working in 9? Please! the Classic Mac OS was NEVER meant to have TCP/IP bolted on top of it. When Apple introduced Open Transport, I thought maybe things would change a lot more than they did. Network performance is abysmal under Classic Mac OS. Period. "From the first time I tried OS X, I have insisted that if there were a 'switch' to bring back the 'look & feel' of OS9 (and earlier), that every user would hunt it down and turn it 'on'." Anyone whining about OS X should take a long hard look at themselves, then look at where we've come from. And that should be all that's needed to cure anyone of the notion of going back to OS 9. On second thought, if you want to go back to OS 9, please do! That way I can stop having to listen to the constant belly aching about OS X. "OS X is turning me into all the people that say "My computer hates me" or "It won't work for me now, and I'm doing the same thing that always worked before" or "There are probably a lot more things my computer could do, but gee whillikers, I'm no computer genius, I just stick to the things I know." Bye bye! "Not only is Finder speed an issue, but Apple has never given OS X the refined elegance of the pre-ten OS." I can barely brng myself to work in the Classi environment, let alone thing about how OS X should be more like it. "Why not keep the menu bar for add-ons and accessory "helper" programs and move the menus to the App windows like most *nix GUI's have." OS X doesn't use X Windows as it's native winowing system. As such, many things are different (better) than most of the X Windows implementations out there, "Don't double click on the top or bottom item in list view, it will scroll and launch on you a multitute of items. So on and so forth. These have been with a very long time. Time to resolve now." This double click the top item bug has snagged me time and time again. I've only noticed it since starting to use Tiger but it's in need of fixing regardless. "I have used and enjoyed many Macs since 1984 for home and work." Shut up, we don't care how long you've used the Mac nor how many times you've bought a Mac only to have it replaced the next day by a model that's twice as fast and half the cost. |
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11 May 2006 TED
TED (torrent episode downloader) is a Java-based program that downloads Torrent files based on your input. Key in your favorite TV shows, give TED an RSS feed to feast on and it will monitor that feed for new episodes, download the torrent file, and begin downloading the torrent itself. TED is cross-platform, I simply downloaded the zip archive and double-clicked the .jar file and got going. Very cool and easy to set up.
TED can be found at http://www.ted.nu/. |
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10 May 2006 XSSI
If you can see this, it means the XSSI code for delaying a post's visibility until a certain date is working.
The code came from Ross Olson, I highly reccommend checking his site out if you're looking for ways to exploit Apache and SSI. Ross' site can be accessed at http://www.ordersomewherechaos.com/rosso/xssi/ |
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09 May 2006 Prison Break
I watched Prison Break for the first time last night. I gotta say, it was good. I think it's a little late to get too caught up in it as it's May and the finale has to be coming pretty quickly. I'm wondering how or if they will be bale o do a second season. Of course, if the escape fails, there's some room. The team that produces Lost seems to have found second wind for that series so I guess Prison Break won't be too hard.
The prison exterior shots look like Joliet State Prison in Joliet, IL. The same prison 'Joliet Jake' Blues of the Blues Brothers was incarcerated at. Prison Break is shown Mondays at 7pm central time on the Fox network. |
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09 May 2006 MySQL and Me
Over the last few months, as a project at work has evolved, it's become more and more important for me to learn MySQL. I know, I've talked about learning it for years. Literally.
But I'm finally learning and have been able to get most of the information out of our databases with no assistance. This is a good thing. Something I did to help me along was to create a printout of the MySQL database schema used in our setup. Getting that schema out and printed was much more difficult than I'd anticipated. And I've only done one of the two databases I need. I've picked around the internet looking for a server or Mac-based tool that will output a schema for me automatically. If you know of such a tool, let know. Contact info is at the bottom of this page. |
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1 December 2005 New Mac mini in January??
All the rumor sites are just buzzing with the info that Apple will be introducing a Intel-based Mac mini at MacWorld San Francisco in January. More enticing to me than the Intel aspect is the juicy news that it will be a media center type of machine. TV tuner, DVR capability. All the things many of us have been drooling for since the original mini was introduced last January.
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3 November 2005 My one snag with OS X 10.4.3
I ran into one snag after updating my PowerBook to 10.4.3: one of my screensavers was freaking the screen out, almost to the point of being a strobe effect. I was also unable to open the Screensaver module in PrefPanes until I had removed the offending screensaver. I'm not sure which of my Matrix screensavers was the culprit but I'll have to try something else for the time being.
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1 November 2005 Output man Pages to PDF
UNIX man files are very useful, they're a pain to print and they're not very portable. Mac OS X 10.3 aka Panther has a new command available from the terminal, pstopdf. This command takes plain Postscript output and outputs a .pdf file. And you can pipe things to it from the Terminal. To convert a man page to a PDF or to print it later when you have a printer available is a powerful feature indeed.
Structure your command like this: man -t ls | pstopdf -i -o ls.pdfThe t flag on the man command outputs the manual in Postscript format allowing you to use it as standard output for the pstopdf command. The pstopdf command requires the i flag to use standard input, and the o flag allows you to name the output file, which will automatically save in the present directory from where the user is running the command. |
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Site Template
I got an e-mail this week requesting the template I use to layout my pages. You can snag it here. Keep in mind it also uses a number of .html files that 'plug in' to the site as I am using Server Side Includes (SSI) to help manage the site. I'll zip up everything so you can download it from here.
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26 October 2005 Animated Desktop Background
Here's a cool little application called ScreenSave (36K) that will take the animated screensaver you have set in your Desktop & Screensaver pref pane and bring it to your Desktop, in full animated glory. I haven't figured out how to make the app quit after running nor do I know why the effect is killed when the screensaver proper kicks in. Let me know if you know why.
If you'd rather run the code from the command line, here's the command: /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -backgroundAnd here's the contents of the shell script contained in the app itself. #!/bin/sh # a shell script to display animated screensaver modules as a Desktop picture /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -backgroundThe app was made with Platypus, a free app for taking scripts (shell, python, AppleScript, etc.) and putting an application wrapper on them so non-techie users can avail themselves to the power of scripts without actually having to open Terminal.app. |
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25 October 2005 Apple OS X Server Training, Part 2
Today we took a good look at Open Directory. Open Directory is an LDAP service that allows OS X to act as a directory server, much the same as Windows' Active Directory component of Windows 2003 Server.
Open Directory provides authentication service. It can securely store and validate the passwords of users who want to log in to client computers on your network or use other network resources that require authentication. Open Directory can also enforce such policies as password expiration and minimum length. Open Directory can also authenticate Windows computer users for domain login, file service, and other Windows services provided by Mac OS X Server. Built into Open Directory is a robust authentication server using MIT's Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) - providing strong authentication with support for secure single sign-on. That means users need authenticate only once, with a single user name and password pair, for access to a broad range of Kerberized network services. For services that have not been Kerberized, the integrated SASL service automatically negotiates the strongest-possible authentication protocol. Some of these Kerberized services include:
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24 October 2005 Apple OS X Server Training
I'm in an Apple OS X Tiger Server training class this week. And as there as a number of spaces time waiting for installs and such, I decided to blog things I'd like to remember.
Port Numbers Used for Remote Install
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21 October 2005 Apple Releases New Pro Machines
Well, I was really close. The new Powerbooks have higher-resolution screens as well as being brighter by up to 46%. They also now are equipped with Dual-layer SuperDrives, very cool. The part I was wrong about was the speed bump. No worries though.
the new G5 Power Macs are all dual core processor-equipped. So the top-of-the-line unit has 4 processor cores. While not technically four processors, the new machine chews through video about 40% faster. Easily justifiable for video professionals and serious amateurs as well. hey're also coming with dual layer SuperDrives and have upgraded video card options. And, they can use Error Checking and Correction (ECC) memory. This makes the G5 truly workstation class in every sense of the word. When Apple introduced the IIfx way back in 1990, it was called a workstation. It was also priced like one at around $10,000. The new G5, in it's low-end configuration, costs about $3300. |
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20 October 2005 Interesting Article from Bob Cringely
I've mentioned Bob Cringely and the column he writes and publishes on pbs.org a few times. Bob has hit the nail on the head once again.
This time, he's talking about the development of Apple and it's online video download business. Take a look at it and I'm sure you will find yourself more knowledgeable than before. |
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18 October 2005 Apple to Release Speed Bump Machines Tomorrow?
The Mac community is all abuzz about Apple's media event scheduled for tomorrow in New York City. Will they release new PowerBooks? Power Macs?
The answer is yes. The PowerBooks will get a small speedbump as well as a couple of other features. They will not be earth-shattering nor will they be HD-video capable. The Power Macs will also garner a small speed bump in CPU clock rate as well as upgraded video cards and RAM/hard drive configurations. You read it here first. |
 17 October 2005 Free Music for Your iPod
Occasionally, I read a post on a blog or an article bemoaning the cost of music downloads. Sure, you can BitTorrent albums and such, but you're never really sure of the quality of such downlaods. Nor can you be assured that you're getting what you think you are.
Enter Indy. Indy is a nifty little (500K download) that gets it's music from a database of independent music tracks. What makes it different is that as music plays in Indy, you rate it from 1 to 5 stars. One and two-star songs aren't played again and your scores for those songs are transmitted to Indy.tv so that music more attuned to your tastes can be downlaoded and listened to. After a time, you will begin to amass quite a pile of music in the Indy folder located at ~/Music/Indy. The tracks are DRM-free, and can be added to your iTunes Library for use in iTunes or for transfer to your iPod. Indy is a Java application and there is a version available for Linux as well as OS X. Another similar program for getting new music is Squatcom. This program differs from Indy in that instead of an integrated play, it uses iTunes for playback. You still rates songs, just in iTunes. As such, it's use requires iTunes. Squatcom gets it music from Live Music Archive and there is an excellent variety available. Squatcom is available only for Mac OS X. The music at the Live Music Archive, however, can be downloaded and played on most any computer. |
 16 October 2005 What People are Missing with the new iPods
Since Apple announced their new models of iPod now have the capability to play video, everyone has been weighing in on the issue. Most seem to be asking why on Earth anyone would want to watch video on a little screen like the iPods. This is for them.
The answer to this question is: nobody. I mean, come on. Watching video on a 2.5-inch screen? Maybe as a novelty. But the lure of novelities wears out quickly. No, the real story here isn't that iPod plays video, it's that we can now purchase and legally download content from the internet. And it's fresh, new content as well. So now we have to decide just how to react. Me? I downloaded the first four episodes of Lost: Season Two. Haven't watched them yet, but I may not get to it for a few days. The point is, I can watch them when I want to watch them. |
 2 June 2005 Print Error in Mac OS Classic
I ran into a strange issue printing from a Classic Mac application using IP from one office to a remote printer at another office. IP printing in general on OS 9 works pretty well, once you figure out you have to use the Desktop Printer Utility in Classic to set it all up.
The error I received was -8927, The Document "" could not be printed from the application "" because an error occurred. I tried restarting the remote printer, restarting the application itself, and logging out completely and coming back in. What ultimately fixed the problem was restarting the Classic environment. I thought that would have happened when I logged out and back in, but apparently not to the liking of the print subsystem. {shrug} |
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16 April 2005 LEDs for Illumination LED technology continues to evolve into a more practical and economical way to produce artificial light. While fluorescent bulbs are very economical to buy and use, LEDs hold even more promise. The Lightfair convention held this past week highlighted a number of newly-developed technologies LEDs are being used for. Things like neon replacement, airline cabin lighting, adjustable color lighting, and more. I'm very excited by these developments. I'm one of the 5% of people that have adopted fluorescent lighting as the standard for their home. By doing so, I estimate the electric bill is $10 to $15 less every month. And believe me, I like lots of light, commonly having 5 lights illuminated in the living room of my apartment at one time. There are only 4 bulbs in the apartment that are incandescent. One is in the stairwell going to the basement that's really out of reach. The other three are in areas they just do not get used. So I'm a believer in the technology. The cost to outfit the house with these bulbs was about $75. I have not had a single bulb fail in nearly a year of use. |
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15 April 2005 Tiger is Coming Apple has set April 29 as the release data for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. I for one, plan on ordering the Family Pack so I can outfit all 4 Macs in the house, save some money, and support Apple by being legal on all my machines. Sounds like a win-win to me. More on Tiger coming. |
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14 April 2005 Linux Live CDs Being a geek, I've read a number of times about various Linux Live CDs. These are Linux distributions that are self-contained on a bootable CD. I think there's even a MythTV/Knoppix Live CD distro. Something I've noticed about these is they haven't aways been available for the PPC platform. That's changed in the last few months. Now, there are a variety of Live CDs for PPC available. I downloaded one such offering from Ubuntu Linux. I gotta say, it's pretty cool. Pop the CD into my PowerBook, reboot holding the C key and in a couple minutes, I'm in a Linux environment. Sound works, my Asante 802.11g wireless works, It's just plain cool how easy this all came together. |
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3 April 2005 TiVo Update After many attempts, I have gotten my TiVo fully functioning. It took a couple additional phone calls before my USB network interface just started working. The next step was to get it connected to my computer via TiVo Desktop. After a couple miscues, the computer connects with the TiVo OK now. The next step was to get content burned onto DVD for archiving. So I purchased MyDVD from Sonic as that was the blessed solution from TiVo. After a couple of failed attempts at burning a DVD, I determined my boot drive did not have enough free space to handle the burn. So I installed a new larger capacity drive. And that's where I am today. Hopefully, I'll be able to give it a try again soon. |
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29 January 2005 iTunes' Protected AAC Files
If you've found it annoying having DRM-protection on files you've downloaded from iTunes Music Store, grab this utility:
JHymn 0.6.3 O'Reilly has a good article that explains a lot about the program as well as it's usage. Make sure you've got at least the same free drive space as the files you're scrubbing. It's only temporary but something to take into account. |
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25 January 2005 Media Deals
From Amazon
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 19 January 2005 OS X Tips
I don't claim to know everything about Mac OS X. In fact, I seem to pick up something new nearly every day. Keeps my mind alert.
Here are my latest finds. If you are in a situation where turning down the brightness of your PowerBook/iBook isn't quite enough, try hitting the Command-Option-Control-8 keys. the display will turn to grayscale and the image will also turn to a negative-style. (You can click on the thumbnail image above to see a sreen shot near full-size.) Very cool, and it's as dark as one can get the Mac interface. It all still looks pretty good. Some things that have color may give you some problems but it's interesting nonetheless. Are you using an external keyboard on your PowerBook or iBook? Wish you could adjust the brightness from that same keyboard? Well, you can. On the Apple Pro Keyboard, the F14 and F15 keys dim and brighten the screen's backlight. Need to change the shortname of an OS X user account? Are you afraid of NetInfo Manager? Try using Account Enhancer. It's a tiny, free utility that takes car eof the whole process seemlessly and quickly. And the guys at MacOSXCocktail.com have other utilities as well. Give 'em a look. |
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15 January 2005 Insight Digital Cable
Since moving back into Rockford proper six months ago, I've had the pleasure of having Insight Digital Cable service. Now I'm not astroturfing nor am I being paid to convince you to subscribe. I simply wish to relay my positive experience and satisfaction with it.
So what's to like?
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27 November 2004 No Updates in Two Months?
So where've I been for the last 60 days? I dunno. I just realized it'd been that long since I posted anything. So here are some updates.
Apple relased a new build of the upcoming Tiger MNac OS X release on November 8. Numbered 8A294, it includes lots of fixes and continues to prep developers for the upcoming release. No word yet on a timeframe for release. I flew from Chicago to Louisville on the day before Thanksgiving to spend the weekend with family. Take my advice: avoid flying the day before Thanksgiving. It was unreal. My flight was scheduled for a 6:05 pm departure. After five (5!) delays, I finally got going at 11:00 pm, and arrived in Louisville at 1:30 am. The group of us flying were herded back and forth from gate F5 to F9 to F4 to F7 to F5 to F6 where we ultimately departed from. My Christmas break is starting on the 22nd of December, hopefully it will not be as memorable. |
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27 September 2004 Google Mail
A few months ago, Google introduced Gmail. I've been lusting for an account ever since then. Why? it's only webmail. Yeah, but it's webmail with a difference: no deleting messages. That should require a little getting used to, eh? Anyway, I was wandering around MacOSXHints.com and saw a posting from someone who had their weblog in their sig line. Being curious, I went to the site and started checking things out. He's got a quite a few interesting tidbits. He's also going to send Gmail invites to the first couple of people that post a link to his weblog on their site.
Here it is: Kirkville Thanks man! He sent me an invite within an hour! |
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13 September 2004 iTunes Suggestions
Some random suggestions that would make iTunes even better.
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10 Spetember 2004 Another Guy Gets It
"When it comes to operating system releases, I believe that Apple has found the sweet spot: a combination of best practices from the industry and best practices from the open source world. In addition to this, the versioning setup that Apple ships for the Frameworks seems to be pretty good on the surface."
Miguel de Icaza |
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3 September 2004 New Version of BBEdit
Earlier this week, BareBones Software released a new version of their flagship product, BBEdit.
Among the many new features, I've noticed the following things: |
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17 August 2004 Command-Line ARD Configuration Apple Remote Desktop 2: Configuring remotely via command line (kickstart) This document does not apply to ARD version 1.2 or earlier or versions 1.2.1 to 1.2.4. Apple Remote Desktop 2 includes the "kickstart" command line utility. It allows you to install, uninstall, activate, configure, and restart components of Apple Remote Desktop without restarting the computer. You can configure all the features found in Apple Remote Desktop preferences. An updated version of this document may be available here. The kickstart utility is located here: /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart You need an administrator account to use the kickstart utility. To begin using the kickstart utility, use the sudo command, such as: $ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -restart -agent Note: All commands presented in this document should be typed as one line of text. It's OK if the text wraps as you enter it, just be sure not to enter hard carriage returns. Following are some examples of other things you could do. 1. Activate Remote Desktop Sharing, enable access privileges for all users, restart ARD Agent: $ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -restart -agent 2. Activate Remote Desktop Sharing, enable access privileges for the users "admin", grant full privileges for the users "admin", restart ARD Agent and Menu extra: $ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -users admin -privs -all -restart -agent -menu 3. Activate Remote Desktop Sharing, disable access privileges for all users: $ sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -off 4. If you just want to stop the ARD Agent process: # sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -agent -stop 5. If you want to deactivate it: # sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -deactivate -configure -access -off Tip: For more information about using the kickstart command, add the -help flag. For example: # sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -help |
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16 August 2004 Nifty Terminal Hint
Not sure where I saw this, but it's cool.
When in a terminal or command-line session, a listing of files would typically look something like this: Last login: Mon Aug 16 10:44:18 on ttyp1 Welcome to Darwin! Dave-Es-PowerBook:~ dave$ ls -la total 7656 drwxr-xr-x 8 dave dave 272 1 Jun 09:37 Desktops -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 36 20 Dec 2002 Hostwerks drwx------ 5 dave dave 170 17 Aug 10:35 .Trash -rw------- 1 dave dave 0 27 Jun 17:21 .Xauthority -rw------- 1 dave dave 5847 16 Aug 16:45 .bash_history drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102 16 Jun 11:36 .java -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 37 16 Aug 13:49 .lpoptions drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102 22 Jun 22:46 .mplayer drwx------ 4 dave dave 136 23 Jul 08:46 .ssh -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 99820 28 Jun 15:24 Apple Maintenance Program.pdf drwxr-xr-x 35 dave dave 1190 27 Jun 20:06 Apps drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102 13 Aug 13:34 Downloads -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 94 12 Aug 13:27 EMMA IPs -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 0 28 May 15:25 Empty Finished Goods drwxr-xr-x 22 dave dave 748 10 Aug 10:07 Net Apps drwxr-xr-x 5 dave dave 170 16 Aug 14:53 Pocket Drive drwxrwxr-x 7 dave dave 238 7 Jun 08:35 Radmind -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 142782 14 Apr 12:20 SAG_SAC_10_3.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 10240 16 Jun 16:00 Server Matrix.xls drwxr-xr-x 7 dave dave 238 10 Jul 15:32 Sites -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 2794 10 Jul 19:01 Tiramisu.rtf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 136056 6 Jun 2003 Troubleshooting.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 711 5 May 02:20 Users Guide.rtf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 87675 15 Jun 09:50 VXA Lights Explained.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave wheel 40335 26 Jun 16:15 aaaremotes_1795_4926779.jpg drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102 21 Apr 11:54 bin drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102 11 Nov 2003 cue-splitter.app drwxrwxr-x 16 dave dave 544 8 Aug 06:47 desktop pictures -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 17408 9 Jun 08:03 domains.xls drwxrwxrwx 15 dave dave 510 21 Mar 15:58 dvd software -rwxrwxrwx 1 dave dave 2642506 30 Jun 13:15 eims3.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 321 10 May 09:17 host.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 32703 8 Jun 08:02 rad_assist1.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 22081 8 Jun 08:03 rad_assist2.jpg Dave-Es-PowerBook:~ dave$Notice I used the ls -la command. What if I really want to see the sizes in kilobytes or megabytes. As of OS X 10.3, the -h option is supported. Using the -h option will give us output like this: Dave-Es-PowerBook:~ dave$ ls -lah total 7656 drwxr-xr-x 8 dave dave 272B 1 Jun 09:37 Desktops -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 36B 20 Dec 2002 Hostwerks drwxr-xr-x 63 dave dave 2K 16 Aug 21:21 . drwxrwxr-t 8 root admin 272B 22 Jun 10:09 .. drwx------ 5 dave dave 170B 17 Aug 10:35 .Trash -rw------- 1 dave dave 0B 27 Jun 17:21 .Xauthority -rw------- 1 dave dave 5K 16 Aug 16:45 .bash_history drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102B 16 Jun 11:36 .java -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 37B 16 Aug 13:49 .lpoptions drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102B 22 Jun 22:46 .mplayer drwx------ 4 dave dave 136B 23 Jul 08:46 .ssh -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 97K 28 Jun 15:24 Apple Maintenance Program.pdf drwxr-xr-x 35 dave dave 1K 27 Jun 20:06 Apps drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102B 13 Aug 13:34 Downloads -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 94B 12 Aug 13:27 EMMA IPs -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 0B 28 May 15:25 Empty Finished Goods drwxr-xr-x 22 dave dave 748B 10 Aug 10:07 Net Apps drwxr-xr-x 5 dave dave 170B 16 Aug 14:53 Pocket Drive drwxrwxr-x 7 dave dave 238B 7 Jun 08:35 Radmind -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 139K 14 Apr 12:20 SAG_SAC_10_3.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 10K 16 Jun 16:00 Server Matrix.xls -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 132K 6 Jun 2003 Troubleshooting.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 711B 5 May 02:20 Users Guide.rtf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 85K 15 Jun 09:50 VXA Lights Explained.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave wheel 39K 26 Jun 16:15 aaaremotes_1795_4926779.jpg drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102B 21 Apr 11:54 bin drwxr-xr-x 3 dave dave 102B 11 Nov 2003 cue-splitter.app -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 17K 9 Jun 08:03 domains.xls drwxrwxrwx 15 dave dave 510B 21 Mar 15:58 dvd software -rwxrwxrwx 1 dave dave 2M 30 Jun 13:15 eims3.pdf -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 321B 10 May 09:17 host.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 31K 8 Jun 08:02 rad_assist1.jpg -rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 21K 8 Jun 08:03 rad_assist2.jpg Dave-Es-PowerBook:~ dave$So now the output is in a human readable format. Cool, eh? Thanks to the BSD folks for integrating this in. It may work with Linux, or it may not. |
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9 August 2004 Conventional Wisdom
I saw this, laughed out loud, and decided to share it. I'm particularly fond of #3.
1. All corporations are evil. 2. Copyrights are all wrong. All knowledge is public domain. 3. Except knowledge about you. In that case, it's an evil plot by an all-knowing group of shadowy government agencies. 4. Any claim by a web site must be true, if it adheres to Sacred Teachings #1-3. 5. Based upon these indisputable facts, the EC (evil corporation) must be punished. 6. This justifies ignoring all intellectual property laws, with, of course, the sole exception of Sacred Truth #3. |
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1 August 2004 A Short Tirade About Microsoft
Over the years, I've moaned, whined and generally complained about Microsoft and the many ways it screws it's customers in every which way. Here is yet another example.
This is an example of why you don't want to trust your data to anyone. And for goodness' sake, don't encrypt your data using anything from Microsoft! Friends don't let friends use Passport. |
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23 July 2004 About the Motel of Lost Companions
I've gotten a couple of notes asking what the "Motel of Lost Companions" reference is about. Simply put, it's from a song called Thrasher by Neil Young. I've liked the Rust Never Sleeps album since it was released way back in the summer of '79. I think I was among 20 or so people in Rockford that actually saw it. I loved it, so much humor that was subtle, yet strong. Any way, I've linked to some info about the song, the lyrics, etc..
Enjoy. |
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22 July 2004 Someone who gets it
From The Register's interview with Colly Myers, creator of the Symbian OS used in many cell phones.
"The reality is that trying to push everything into everything just doesn't make sense. We'll see an unfolding of more things like the iPod - focused at a particular consumer solution. Everything doesn't go into there. Where you can break out groups of functions - the phone and the camera may work for some segments but not others; some might never want it, or might never use it. As we get more and more digital, all this complexity has to be tamed in a way that the consumer can access it." |
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26 June 2004 New Virus May Steal Data
A mysterious Internet virus being spread Friday by hundreds and possibly thousands of infected websites may be aimed at stealing credit card and other valuable information, security experts warned.
The infection appears to take advantage of three separate flaws with Microsoft products. Microsoft said software updates to fix two of them had been released in April, but the third flaw was newly discovered and had no patch to fix it yet. Experts said the infection, detected by Microsoft on Thursday, was unusually broad but wasn't substantially interfering with Internet traffic. Security technicians at Microsoft and elsewhere worked Friday to pin down how the infection spreads across websites. It appears to target at least one recent version of Internet Information Server, Microsoft's software for operating websites. The infection makes subtle changes to the site so visitors get a piece of code that's designed to retrieve from a Russian website software that records a person's keystrokes and can send data back, experts say. Such software "Trojan horses" are routinely used to fish for credit card numbers, bank accounts, passwords and the like. Now that the code is out, other hackers are likely to adapt it to distribute software for spamming and for launching broad Internet attacks against popular sites, said Alfred Huger, senior director of engineering at Symantec Corp. "Users should be aware that any website, even those that may be trusted by the user, may be affected by this activity and thus contain potentially malicious code," the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned in an Internet alert. Stephen Toulouse, a security program manager at Microsoft, recommended that computer owners obtain the latest security updates for Microsoft products and their antivirus and firewall programs. Because one flaw has yet to be fixed, he said, users should also turn up security settings on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers to the highest levels. Security experts noted that users can avoid the exploit by using alternative browsers such as Mozilla and Opera. Users could also turn off the Javascript feature on their Microsoft browsers, though doing so cripples functions on some sites. The infection does not affect Macintosh versions of Internet Explorer. |
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25 June 2004 Some Things I've Missed
Here are a couple of things I ran across but never got posted, miscellaneous stuff really.
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has designed a carrying case that holds a dozen iPods. He has stated he owns 40 of Apple's popular MP3 player. Here's a link to a site by a couple of German guys that is a Flash-based Mac SE simulator. Oh, the memories... |
 17 June 2004 Cell Phone Experience
Last Saturday, I took the plunge and switched cell phone carriers and got a new phone.
I felt somewhat apprehensive, depsite my having spent a fair amount of time researching various phones and nearly all of the cell phone carriers. So, where did I land? With AT&T Wireless using a Sony Ericsson T616 phone. Here's why:
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29 May 2004 Here's Something New
On the OS X login screen, (you don't auto-login, do you?) it is now possible to press the Return key to move between the username and password fields. And what is the significance of this? Well, for people that migrated from NeXTStep this behavior affords a new level of comfort brought over from the old system.
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27 May 2004 Mac OS X Panther 10.3.4 Update Many people are reporting problems with the 10.3.4 update. I'm sure many of these folks are calling for Apple's proverbial head to be placed on a stick. However, let me relate my positive experience. The company I work at has a fairly good number of Mac clients as well as a large number of remote clients we support. The majority are running OS X 10.3 aka Panther. Here's the method I've used with good results:
And that's how I did it. Worked very well for me. |
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29 April 2004 Free Single of the Day The iTMS Free Single of the Day is Avril Lavigne's Take Me Away. |
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28 April 2004 iTunes Music Store 1st Anniversary iTunes turns one year-old today. Incredible but true. One whole year. And with the addition of a Windows version of iTunes last October, iTunes is now the number one selling and number one market share holder in the online music business. Very cool and not a shock to this writer. To mark the anniversary, Apple has released new versions of iTunes, Quicktime, and the iPod software. Apple is also giving away a free iTune a day from selected artists for the next 8 days. Very cool idea that makes me feel better about the service and should help new users get their feet wet. Quoting from Apple: "Apple is marking the first anniversary of its iTunes Music Store by thanking its customers with a free song of the day for the next eight days from artists who have helped make iTunes a runaway success, including Foo Fighters, Avril Lavigne, Courtney Love, Annie Lennox, Jane's Addiction, Counting Crows, Renee Fleming and Nelly Furtado. Following the anniversary celebration, the iTunes Music Store will continue to offer a 'Free Single of the Week' from up-and-coming bands, spotlighting emerging artists and offering iTunes customers a risk-free way to discover new music."More cool stuff about iTMS After heading to the iTMS for a daily check of what's what, I discovered some additional features: |
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26 April 2004 iTunes Feature Request iTunes needs to have a couple of added features:
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23 April 2004 OS X Dock Question Has anyone noticed a time when you try to open an alias from the Dock and all it does is show where in Finder it's located? Like the Option key is being pressed? I've seen this behavior come and go and can't put my finger on it. It's not real common but I've had it happen a couple of times in the last few weeks. The first two times it happened I logged out and then back in to correct it. This morning when it happened I let it ride as I didn't have the time to close everything up and log out, log in, and open everything back up again. After a bit of time, the anomaly corrected itself without any particular action on my part. Strange, eh? |
19 April 2004 Running Software Update from the Command Line As I grow into my new job, I'm finding more and more cool things about Mac OS X. Not like there's been any lack of nifty things to discover, but working in a commerical Mac environment I've picked up a few new hints on how to better manage OS X boxen from afar. One of the more interesting features no OS X system administrator should be ignorant of is the command line version of software update. (click for man pages) Software update is Apple's mechanism for delivering updates to the operating system as well as some Apple applications such as iLife, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, etc.. Normally, an admin would run it from the GUI. And it works fine. But what if you don't have VNC, Timbuktu, or Apple Remote Desktop installed on a given machine? What if you have a lot of machines to update? Lots of what-ifs come to mind. Here's an example of what one might see using the CLI method:
~ dave$ ssh dave@davesmachine.com
dave@davesmachine.com's password:
Last login: Mon Apr 19 13:59:58 2004 from 10.0.1.43
Welcome to Darwin!
g4:/Applications dave$ su
Password:
g4:/Users/dave root# softwareupdate -l
Software Update Tool
Copyright 2002-2003 Apple Computer, Inc.
Software Update found the following new or updated software:
* BluetoothFirmwareUpdate1.1-1.1
Apple Bluetooth Module Firmware Update, 1.1, 1832K
g4:/Applications root# softwareupdate -i -a
Software Update Tool
Copyright 2002-2003 Apple Computer, Inc.
BluetoothFirmwareUpdate: 0...10...20...30...40...
Optimizing system performance. This may take a while...
Done.
You have installed one or more updates that requires that you restart your
computer. Please restart immediately.
g4:/Applications root# exit
exit
g4:/Applications dave$ su
Password:
g4:/Applications root# /sbin/reboot
Connection to davesmachine.com closed by remote host.
Connection to davesmachine.com closed.
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26 March 2004 More on the Tomato Torrent Client Here's a cool tip that is helping my BitTorrents download quicker. Look at the picture.  |
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22 March 2004 Tomato Torrent Client Sarwat Khan has released verion 1.0b8 of his BitTorrent client, now dubbed Tomato Torrent. Besides having a really nifty new icon, he's fixed a few issues with 1.0b7. It seems to work very well and if you are utilizing BitTorrent I recommend grabbing it. |
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21 March 2004 Update Sorry for the lack of new material here. My new job is going well but it seems to occupy a large part of my day. So, to spur me to getting a couple of things done for the site, I'm putting them in writing. If there's something you'd like to see sooner rather than later, email me using the link at the bottom of the page and let me know, I'll take any opinions as to what I should complete first. |
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11 March 2004 When Entourage Won't Rebuild it's Database Symptom When you try to rebuild your Entourage database, you may receive the following error message: To rebuild this database, quit all other Microsoft Office programs and then try again.You receive this error message even if you are not running any other Microsoft Office v.X for Macintosh programs. Cause This behavior occurs because Microsoft has some background program turned on. RESOLUTION To resolve this behavior, open a Terminal session. Type topand press Return. In the list of running processes, look for one called Microsoft. Note the Process ID Number or PID. Press Q to exit top. Now type kill -9 (PID)and press return. Now launch Entourage and immediately hold the Option key down. You should be prompted by a dialog box to Rebuild your database. Go for it. |
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7 March 2004 New Toys I grabbed a couple of new toys this weekend. |
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5 March 2004 How Our Tax System Works I ran across this great piece on how the tax system here in the United States works. |
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29 February 2004 BratDays.com for Sale I'm selling the bratdays.com domain. It was originally setup for the Kiwanis Club's annual event. They have declined to purchase it. So it's up for grabs. I'm not looking to make a mint from it but I don't intend to give it away either. Email me at the address on the bottom of the page to make an offer. |
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29 February 2004 Kiwanis Pancake Day The Rockford Kiwanis Clubs join forces this coming Saturday, March 6th for their annual Pancake Day. It will be held at the Rock Valley College PE Center. I'll update this article when/if I find more information. |
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28 February 2004 Dual-Processor PowerBooks? From MacRumors.com On the dual-processor Powerbook front, credible recon from Apple and IBM sources are painting a fairly clear picture in which the Powerbook would remain single-processor until IBM's dual-core, POWER6-based PowerPC 976 ships in early 2006. The single-chip, dual-core architecture has such tremendous advantages over twin-chip designs for laptop purposes and apparently Apple doesn't want to waste precious R&D resources on inferior technologies leading up to that point. |
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28 February 2004 It's Been a Busy Week Sorry for the lack of content this week. I started my new job and didn't think it would be a good idea posting updates to my web site during work hours. The job is a good one. It looks like I'm going to be able to exploit my current pool of talent and expand it at the same time. |
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19 February 2004
The Pascere Concert The Pascere Concert will be held this evening at the Mendolsohnn Club in Rockford. My friend Kevin Davis is one of the principals involved and it looks to be a great night. The concert is a benefit for the Rockford Rescue Mission and admisison is only 5 pounds of non-perishable food. A bargain price for a evening of top-notch music and an easy way to support a great organizaiton. |
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18 February 2004 Page Views Here's a raw breakdown of the pages all of you are looking at. And it's strange, there are people coming in from all over the place. And the wide variety of pages being looked at are amazing. Here I figured I was the only one interested in Tick quotes or reading Seinfeld scripts. Thanks. /~dave/osx_tips.shtml 93 18.52 KB 79 67 /~dave/tick_quotes.shtml 80 24.35 KB 69 68 /~dave/archive.shtml 37 52.04 KB 29 28 /~dave/ 31 15.91 KB 22 20 /~dave/mysql.shtml 23 13.06 KB 18 17 /~dave/dvdrip.shtml 23 7.37 KB 12 6 /~dave/panther_preview.shtml 21 10.08 KB 19 19 /~dave/seinfeld_scripts/ 15 21.51 KB 1 1 /~dave/dvdrip02.shtml 14 7.07 KB 9 /~dave/resume.shtml 13 9.12 KB 8 9 /~dave/domain_add.shtml 13 6.15 KB 10 11 /~dave/shell_scripts.shtml 11 4.89 KB 1 3 /~dave/ebayscam.shtml 10 5.92 KB 8 8 /~dave/safari.shtml 9 5.90 KB 1 3 /~dave/halo.shtml 9 4.73 KB 7 5 /~dave/macworld.shtml 9 10.68 KB 6 6 /~dave/screensaver.shtml 9 5.36 KB 6 7 /~dave/ssh_tunnel.shtml 8 6.50 KB 2 4 /~dave/osxideas.shtml 8 7.82 KB 3 3 /~dave/service.shtml 8 6.40 KB 5 5 /~dave/index.shtml 7 15.83 KB 1 /~dave/osx_keyboard.shtml 6 11.09 KB 4 /~dave/seinfeld.shtml 5 9.84 KB 2 2 /~dave/diskimages.shtml 5 7.18 KB 1 1 /~dave/public_key.shtml 4 6.83 KB 1 /~dave/macosxhacks.shtml 4 7.49 KB 2 2 /~dave/Lyrics.sit 3 4.45 KB 1 1 /~dave/plist_chk.shtml 3 5.01 KB 1 1 /~dave/keychain_first_aid.shtml 3 6.08 KB 1 /~dave/videoemail.shtml 3 6.87 KB 1 1 /~dave/osxcheatsheet.pdf 3 742.71 KB 1 /~dave/crossover.shtml 2 5.75 KB 2 /~dave/cobalt.shtml 2 5.05 KB /~dave/daemon.shtml 2 5.24 KB 1 1 |
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16 February 2004 New Job As many of you know, I've been seeking gainful employment. I've accepted a job with VyMaC Corporation in Whitewater, WI and start on Monday, February 23, 2004. VyMaC is the corporate parent of Verlo Mattress Factory Stores, Verlo Franchise, Durable Products Company, Advertising Services Group, Soleil Caffe, and The Creamery Building. My official title will be End User Support Specialist, here's a PDF of my job description. My primary function will be to support the existing infrastructure and assist in the rollout and support of additional web-based techologies the company has planned. VyMaC is also just starting a major rennovation project on the old creamery building in downtown Fort Atkinson. Having driven by this location for years on my way to Underhill, I am very happy to see it in the hands of a company that has a vision that will not only enhance it's positon, but the entire downtown of Fort Atkinson as well. VyMaC is a rare company these days in that is Mac-based. They are in the process of migrating their entire point-fo-sale system over to OS X, and will be rolling out a new point-of-sale system that runs under OS X as well. It's an exciting time to join the team and I look forward to hitting the ground running. As my time will be dominated by the one-two punch of a fulltime job and a full-time school load, I will be scaling back my consulting services. I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this type of work and hope my clients understand my position. |
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16 February 2004 Interarchy 7 Released Over the last couple of months, I've been involved with the beta testing of the new verison of Interarchy. There have been some twenty test releases leading up to the final release today. A $19 upgrade is available for users of previous verisons. I've already upgraded. |
