Everything has a reason

One of the things that annoyed me in Leopard, is the fact that suddenly, bluetooth transfers from mobile devices to my mac stopped being accepted. I saw the incoming bluetooth request, but the connection broke immediately, resulting in a sad “connection error” on the mobile device.

Luckily, other people know exactly what to do about that. Enabling Bluetooth Sharing, perhaps I would have done that if I searched a little further.

Oh well, my mac is accepting my files again

… zo is het maar net…

Apple rocks, everyone knows that. Their laptops are incredibly thin, everyone knows that. But this is crazy…

This weekend I closed my facebook account. Due to reasons you can read all over the place. Only, I didn’t find the option “Close account” anymore, and I’m sure it was there once so I just “deactivated” it, leaving it “reserved for me” until I login again… not that I’m planning to, except when somebody tells me how to close it definitively.

And if I had written this down earlier, then probably I would have been mentioned too…

A couple of days ago, my sister was telling that she had read on the Internet that Playboy had been retouching a model a little too much, removing her belly button. I’ve done a little search and sure enough, the image was found rather quickly.

The mistake went unnoticed, and the magazine sold 605,000 copies that month… lots of readers got pissed off when they realized they were wasting money on fake pictures.

That is however, what the Internet wants you to believe. Some people are thinking a bit further, and even analyse the image, showing that the image was originally digital and not edited by Playboy. It’s fake. The image, the blame, the story. Again. Second time in two weeks I didn’t follow my own advice I tell to others: do not believe whatever you read, especially not whatever is on the Internet.

My sister told me. And then I found it on the Internet. So I just didn’t even think about whether it could be wrong.

The longer I think about the story, the more I realize how stupid I’ve been believing it. It just starts with how they didn’t even notice the belly button was removed. Or how they could could even remove it by accident in the first place! And the readers, the readers! Pissed off because they noticed the images were Photoshopped. Of course they are Photoshopped! I don’t think you can find any magazine in the world in which the images aren’t retouched! Especially not in magazines like Playboy! And the clues just keep coming. This is just a plain, ordinary hoax. Damn.

The original image is here (small, but large enough to see the belly button). The photo was published in VIP Magazine, June 2006.

Luckily, I can comfort myself with the fact that I at least do some research before blogging something. Suppose I would have copied the text just like the other blogs and make this another ordinary blog copying erroneous information. Then I really would have a reason to be ashamed… And while searching, reading, browsing, you might reach a question like: what’s wrong in the picture below (click to enlarge)?

Any idea?

It has happened twice. The 500GB disk I bought together with Leopard suddenly powers down from time to time and then refuses to start when I push the power button. Only way to revive the disk is to unplug it and plug it back in. The second time I searched the logs for a possible explanation and I read an error about “IndexStore in SIStoreDirytySDBCHunks:Error storing dirty sdb pages:22″ for the Spotlight folder on that disk. Spotlight. I disabled Spotlight for that disk! And now it seems that this folder caused the problem, so I removed it and I noticed there was a file .000d8322fed6 on the disk too. “data” Well, I don’t have any idea what that is, probably an erroneous leftover of an erroneous copy at the time that the diskfailure, so I removed that one too – it is only 16B anyway.

Lesson 32 in computer safety: do not remove hidden or system files if you don’t know what you are doing and especially when you don’t have any idea what they are used for.

Back in the Windows 98 aria I always laughed with people who, wanting to free some disk space, removed “autoexec.bat” and “command.com” because they didn’t use them and were in desperate need for free disk space, resulting in acute panic attacks when they rebooted their computers.

I suddenly noticed the disk hadn’t done anything for the last two hours, it hadn’t made any noise, not even a single ratle and since Time Machine normally creates a backup every hour, I thought that was suspicious. It was indeed.

Volume at path /Volumes/LaCie does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. Backup failed with error: 18.

Sigh. Maybe this is the point where I’d say: I might have removed Time Machine by accident. I reconfigured Time Machine, changed the disk to be used as backup disk (but actually pointing to the same of course) and forced a backup. The “preparing” took a rather long time – longer than before – but it only backed up 365MB this time, not the 23GB that resides on my hard drive. And indeed, launching Time Machine on a folder learns none of the backups are gone and… that dot file is back.

I was lucky this time. Maybe I should stop thinking I’m smarter than the machine…

Not only Shahn has troubles installing NTFS-3G on Leopard, I have had serious troubles too after installing, uninstalling, reinstalling and overinstalling this driver, several tries to get it working. I had an issue with the newer version I installed after my upgrade to Leopard: every time I tried to copy a file to the NTFS disk using Finder, I got the error “filename too long” bashing over me even when I tried to copy “test.txt” to the root.

I even tried my own tutorial to install NTFS-3G using older versions of the applications/drivers but that was the point where the serious troubles began. That version is clearly not compliant with Leopard. Where previously the disk was mounted automatically in read/write mode when connected, it was now mounted with the default Mac OS X read-only driver. The only way to mount the disk read-write, was to remount it using the commandline. While I still got the “filename too long” error in Finder, I managed to copy files to the disk using cp in the Terminal.

Updated version
It is only today that I noticed both NTFS-3G and MacFUSE have had an update only recently, so I started downloading instantly. First thing to do was to uninstall the NTFS-3G driver (using the uninstall command that was provided in the disk image). Sadly, there’s no such uninstall script for MacFUSE and I haven’t found a way yet to uninstall software that doesn’t place it’s files in the Applications folder and thus can’t be removed by just trashing the files. MacFUSE has to stay where it is. After installing both updated versions, the disk is not mounted as Network Drive (which was previously done). I opened the drive while thinking the update didn’t solve my issue, but then I noticed Finder wasn’t in read-only mode! I tried to copy files and directories and indeed, it works again. Removing files however won’t trash them first, they’ll be erased immediately which is rather strange, since the .Trashes folder has been created. The option to format a disk as NTFS is also back.

Steps performed

• Unmount any connected NTFS disks and fysically disconnect them
• Uninstall NTFS-3G if possible
• Install MacFUSE 1.1.1
• Reboot the Mac
• Install NTFS-3G 1.1104 (.dmg or .pkg)
• Reboot the Mac
• Enjoy the NTFS file system.

The last step is optional. I prefer more decent file systems like HFS+ or Ext3 in combination with their appropriate operating systems of course…

It is a bit tricky to sync my SE K510i with my Mac using iSync – since it isn’t officially supported – but it works.

Of course, it is still a hack, unsupported, and thus, if I could find a supported way, I’d love to try that one (iff I don’t have to buy it). That’s why my heart skipped a beat today after installing the Leopard Development tools. I noticed there was an utility added to my Powerbook called iSync plug-in maker.

I opened that tool and indeed! The entire interface screamed to easily create an iSync plug-in. It can detect the phone, interrogate it and enter the device characteristics automatically. The only thing I had to do is enter some defaults and enter which type of contacts I had (does the phone support company-name, does it support first and last name or is everything entered in one field, …)

After configuring the plug-in for my phone, I noticed a button “Test”. Sure, I want to test! Suppose I install this plug-in right away, try to use it and then notice it erases all my contacts from my phone and my Addressbook. Don’t want to see that happen! While thinking that, I hit the test button and saw the more than 1350 test scenario’s that could be executed! Amazing. Everything seems to be covered: add only a contact with a first name, modify a contact with first and last name, a contact with first and last name with only company address, or with only a home address… I select them all (no, not one by one) and hit “Run those tests!”

The tests start and tell me what they do: adding a contact, modifying it, … After a while I go take a look in my phonebook list. Indeed! A contact is created at the top of the list called “Firstname Lastname” and after a couple of seconds, the “Lastname” is renamed to “Lastname Modified” and even the phone number has changed. So that’s perfect! Not only this tool seems to be user friendly, it even seems to work!

And then… the shower. An enormous flood of ice cold water drained over my head as a tropical storm during mid-winter. This time my heart didn’t skip a beat. It skipped a couple of them. The contact that is being modified isn’t just the first contact. it is the only contact.

One hundered and thirty three contacts erased in just a fraction of a second (didn’t see the removal anyway), no one to talk to, no one to call, no one to recognize, all contacts, all phone numbers, all e-mail addresses just G-O-N-E. Except for “Firstname Lastname Modified” with office phone number “1111111″ who is laughing at me.

DAMN

I stop the tests (I am not waiting for the +1350 tests to be finished since the first two took 3 minutes to complete – bluetooth isn’t fast), take the risk for the plug-in to actually work and install it. That works. I open Address Book, back-up all contacts (it’s a reflex, I haven’t removed Time Machine by accident) and launch iSync hoping that I can restore my contacts that way. Wrong thought. iSync states that the plug-in doesn’t work in this version. Raging in agony, I click the special button that iSync supplies to show and remove the erroneous plugin – which I do remove – and relaunch iSync. Clicking “Sync”, I truly hope that this will work and luckily, the program is intelligent enough not to erase all contacts from Address Book, but add them to my phone instead. Now, it’s just a matter to restore the contact images (from which a backup cannot be created) and my voice commands (to call some of my contacts handsfree) but at least my phone numbers are back.

I wonder what “File System Modifier” does…

I’m getting back on track. I restored my mails today and having such a clean mailbox is a good reason to only restore the mails that are really useful, throwing away the junk. When emptying the trash, a recognizable warning shows up:

That is funny. The major update in Leopard is Time Machine and with that, you CAN actually undo that removal. I configured Time Machine today and it is awesome. Indeed: anything you have removed by accident (and I mean anything: the entire system is being watched) can be restored with three clicks. Literally. The system creates an incremental backup every hour. You don’t have to do anything, just making sure your disk is connected.

I got myself a brand new copy of Leopard this afternoon. I first created a backup – just in case since I trust Apple blindly. At least, I did…Just after the backup has been made, a friend of mine came along since he wanted to see the new OS too, even thinking of installing it himself. I inserted the DVD, a finder window opens and gives me the option to reboot to start the installation. Fine. That’s normal, Tiger did the same. After reboot, the familiar blue screen showed up – you get that screen right before logging in – and… it stayed there. No setup wizard, no installation, no nothing. Just Google it for fun. The entire Internet refers to it as the BSoD. I knew the Internet was mentioning it. I knew there were some installation problems. But I knew this was the case too when installing Tiger and I had no issues at all – so it had to be the fault of the users, hadn’t it.

WRONG

Installation failed. I got myself a great thought. Hitting CTRL+CMD+Power (oh yes, Apple has it’s own CTRL+ALT+DEL), rebooting into my working Tiger system and rebooting properly using the system. While rebooting, holding the C key and … Woohoo, the Leopard installation begins.You get three options: Or you upgrade your current installation. “But note”, it states, “it is not mentioned to erase existing programs”. Second option is to Archive and install. You archive your old OS and install a brand new one, keeping your user- and network settings. Third option is to erase and install. I chose the second one, meaning that I wanted to have a clean install but keep my users (and thus my home folder)

WRONG

It took ten minutes before the actual installation started. Ok, that could be normal, since my disk was full for 80% and the installer had to move the current system away. Then, the installation started. Estimated remaining time: 5hrs 45mins 7secs. WHAT? Luckily, the remaining time estimation is never right in the beginning, in no single piece of software and the remaining time dropped rather fast to 30 minutes. And then, a “one minute remaining” estimation appeared and that stood there… for a whole twenty minutes. In the mean time, browsing on my friends computer, we found other people that had the same problem, so no big deal. Indeed, after some twenty minutes, the installation finished. GREAT! I thought.

WRONG

The system reboots, my login screen appears with my users, I login to my user account and… you might have heard of the beach ball. The only icon which is feared in the Mac world. That cursor remained there. Nothing happened. Just my wallpaper on the screen and the beach ball. Just that. I CTRL+CMD+Power’ed my powerbook and after reboot, I chose a user that I created once but was never actually been used – so no changes in user interface either. Good point, the user can login but.. the Finder doesn’t respond. Whatever I tried, nothing helped. Nothing worked. I could launch a Terminal window (since I placed that in the dock three years ago) and I managed to open a Safari window from that terminal window. Browsing the Internet, I read that Archive and install wasn’t such a good idea. In the mean time, my friend started his installation on his powerbook, but he chose an erase and install. After literally 30 minutes, he was up and running. His Software Update utility asked him even to install updates (now already) but he ignored them…

You know, perhaps these problems are just because of me. In the three years I have this Powerbook, I never erased the hard drive but I did messed things up: installing unsupported drivers (which stated during the installation: “do NOT touch your touchpad now or your kernel will panic – and I noticed they were right.), renamed the user account (short name in which Apple states: “you cannot rename this” and I thought “I can”. I did and spent the next two days in restoring the original name.), installation of a complete operating system on top of OS X and remove it afterwards, leaving a lot of remainder applications which conflict with the original unix apps, trying to install Gnome in stead of Aqua, trying other window managers, trying everything else that you can find googling and which stated in bold red “This is dangerous, only do this when you know what you are doing” and then skipping some unimportant parts of the step-by-step explanation which seemed rather important after I corrupted some core applications. Trying to set up new themes using stable and some other less stable programs, messing up the GUI completely, trying to set my users’ account on a network drive, … Really, you cannot mention it, not even the most ridiculous things, but I’ve done them. Which leaves some deep scars into my system. And not taking a normal upgrade but a clean install and keeping my user settings which refer to such remainders of the past… probably that is the main problem here.

After an hour of trying, I gave up and reinstalled Leopard too, using erase and install, just to have everything right and than I would be able to use the system without any problem. I was thinking about clean installing the system anyway, only I didn’t plan it for now. After the installation – which went smootly this time – my System Update utility asked me to install the updates. I didn’t ignore them and installed them.

WRONG

When the powerbook only started to boot… kernel panic. Great. Reboot again? Nope, still kernel panic. I rebooted into the installation DVD and did a hard disk check using the utilities that are offered in the installation image. No errors found. I rebooted into the system on the hard drive and… magically, I’m typing this entry now. The system booted normally. Well, I’ve had enough for today. I hope the system will boot normally tomorrow, without any kernel panic. I would like to write how great Leopard is – since I totally disagree with some of the reviews you can find on the Net: I do like the new interface a L-O-T, but since I spent 5 hours installing the system, I didn’t have the time trying it out.It’s not Apple’s habit.

Hopefully, the system is a lot more stable than its installer. It wasn’t exactly a good beginning, really…