2008
Emtec Movie Cube HDD Upgrade
09/11/08 14:37
A while ago now, I think around 3
years back I bought an Emtec Movie Cube, for those of you who dont know
what it is, its an external HDD drive running Linux that you can
connect directly to a TV and then play back files, whether they be
movies, music or photos on the TV.
It comes with a remote and was supposed to have firmware updates in order to keep up to date with codecs as things change and originally it came in 2 capacities, a 40GB version or an 80GB version. Copying files to it couldnt be simpler, you just connect it to any computer via a USB port and it will then show up as an external drive and you just drag and drop the files onto it and create directories as you wish.
So far we have been quite happy with it and it came in especially useful after my daughter was born (Tivo isnt here yet), as we would just put programmes etc that we wanted to watch on it and could pause them if she needed us.
The only downside with this those has been the HDD size, we quite quickly ran into the 80GB limit as we werent able to watch things too often and some nights we were just so tired that we went to bed once we got Elizabeth to sleep.
So I decided this past weekend to take a look and see if there was something that I could do with it, the first thing that I decided to check was whether the Linux installation was on the HDD itself or on a chip in the enclosure.
Read More...
It comes with a remote and was supposed to have firmware updates in order to keep up to date with codecs as things change and originally it came in 2 capacities, a 40GB version or an 80GB version. Copying files to it couldnt be simpler, you just connect it to any computer via a USB port and it will then show up as an external drive and you just drag and drop the files onto it and create directories as you wish.
So far we have been quite happy with it and it came in especially useful after my daughter was born (Tivo isnt here yet), as we would just put programmes etc that we wanted to watch on it and could pause them if she needed us.
The only downside with this those has been the HDD size, we quite quickly ran into the 80GB limit as we werent able to watch things too often and some nights we were just so tired that we went to bed once we got Elizabeth to sleep.
So I decided this past weekend to take a look and see if there was something that I could do with it, the first thing that I decided to check was whether the Linux installation was on the HDD itself or on a chip in the enclosure.
Read More...
Macbook Pro Harddisk upgrade / replacement
18/10/08 10:45 Filed in: Macbook
Today I upgraded the harddisk in my
Macbook Pro 15”, from a 320GB 5400rpm to a 320GB 7200rpm drive.
This is a separate upgrade from the one that I have previously
wrote about, the idea behind this upgrade was to remove a
bottleneck with the 5400rpm drive and speed up the system as
opposed to gaining more space - even though more space is alway
good!
In fact, I saw that there is currently a 500GB 2.5” drive available and while I was sorely tempted, it only runs at 5400rpm, even so, I was still considering it but what decided it for me was that I released I dont have another 500GB drive available to clone it to, in order to make backups in the future.
At home I basically have the 1TB TC, which we are using with time machine but I also like to make clones using Superduper or Carboncopycloner, partly so that I have another type of backup to recover from, should the need arise, also so that I dont have all of my backups on the same HDD and finally because in an emergency, I could boot from the clone and work immediately, without having to wait for a restore to finish. Then afterwards I can restore either from the clone or the TC.
So that being said, I committed myself to the speed increase and decided to install the 7200rpm drive.
The hardest decision was deciding on the right 7200rpm, I had two under consideration, a Seagte Momentus 7200.3 drive and the Western Digital Scorpio 7200rpm drive. Price-wise there was little to separate them, the Seagate was marginally more expensive cost-wise but the amount was negligible.
I then started comparing the drives specifications, first I examined the benchmarks on Toms Hardware and the reviews for the two drives. Here it seems that the Seagate is slightly faster than the Scorpio, so at the beginning I was leaning more towards the Seagate but again the difference between the two was only slight.
Reading further though I came to power consumption and here although the Seagate idles at a lower power rate than the Scorpio, during usage, the Scorpio has the lowest rating, so essentially, while watching movies or using the computer, the battery should take less of a hit, which really appealed to me.
I went through the rest of the specifications and the difference between the two on paper is really quite small, in fact both companies even offer a 5 year warranty, which also would have been a deciding factor.
Having gone through the articles at Toms Hardware, I went to each of the manufacturers sites and examined the specs for the drives there, the warranties and so on but did not see anything to change my decision. One thing that you should be aware of though, at least with the Western Digital drive is that it comes in two versions, one with a motion sensor built in, one without. According to some reports I read on the internet, the motion sensor in the drive can conflict with the motion sensor in the Macbook Pro, though I dont think that anyone has determined this one hundred percent for sure yet. Either way, it makes sense logically that if you can avoid areas of conflict its a good idea so I chose the drive without the motion sensor - these drives have BEKT in the serial number so you can tell.
Now all that was left was to perform the installation itself.
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In fact, I saw that there is currently a 500GB 2.5” drive available and while I was sorely tempted, it only runs at 5400rpm, even so, I was still considering it but what decided it for me was that I released I dont have another 500GB drive available to clone it to, in order to make backups in the future.
At home I basically have the 1TB TC, which we are using with time machine but I also like to make clones using Superduper or Carboncopycloner, partly so that I have another type of backup to recover from, should the need arise, also so that I dont have all of my backups on the same HDD and finally because in an emergency, I could boot from the clone and work immediately, without having to wait for a restore to finish. Then afterwards I can restore either from the clone or the TC.
So that being said, I committed myself to the speed increase and decided to install the 7200rpm drive.
The hardest decision was deciding on the right 7200rpm, I had two under consideration, a Seagte Momentus 7200.3 drive and the Western Digital Scorpio 7200rpm drive. Price-wise there was little to separate them, the Seagate was marginally more expensive cost-wise but the amount was negligible.
I then started comparing the drives specifications, first I examined the benchmarks on Toms Hardware and the reviews for the two drives. Here it seems that the Seagate is slightly faster than the Scorpio, so at the beginning I was leaning more towards the Seagate but again the difference between the two was only slight.
Reading further though I came to power consumption and here although the Seagate idles at a lower power rate than the Scorpio, during usage, the Scorpio has the lowest rating, so essentially, while watching movies or using the computer, the battery should take less of a hit, which really appealed to me.
I went through the rest of the specifications and the difference between the two on paper is really quite small, in fact both companies even offer a 5 year warranty, which also would have been a deciding factor.
Having gone through the articles at Toms Hardware, I went to each of the manufacturers sites and examined the specs for the drives there, the warranties and so on but did not see anything to change my decision. One thing that you should be aware of though, at least with the Western Digital drive is that it comes in two versions, one with a motion sensor built in, one without. According to some reports I read on the internet, the motion sensor in the drive can conflict with the motion sensor in the Macbook Pro, though I dont think that anyone has determined this one hundred percent for sure yet. Either way, it makes sense logically that if you can avoid areas of conflict its a good idea so I chose the drive without the motion sensor - these drives have BEKT in the serial number so you can tell.
Now all that was left was to perform the installation itself.
Read More...
Time Capsule 1 TB further thoughts
17/10/08 13:57
I’ve been running the TC for around 3
months now roughly and wanted to share some thoughts on it. So far
in terms of performance, operation etc it is working perfectly, it
has been stable and has not given me a reason to complain at
all.
Set up was easy, the easiest router that I have set up so far in fact. I added the TC to an existing network with a router already plugged in and the TC itself informed me that a NAT was already in existence and that I didnt need two
It then told me exactly
what I needed to disable (on the TC itself) to ensure that things
worked properly. After around 30 minutes (because I went through
all of the options, playing with them), I had the TC up and running
without any issues.
It is providing a wireless N network to the two macs in the house and set to only allow N devices to connect, unfortunately, its running over the 2.6ghz spectrum as opposed to the 5ghz because on the 5ghz setting, I couldnt pick up my network downstairs. In the future when we move the TC will be in the living room so I will try changing this then.
I have also got a USB HDD (Western Digital MyBook) and an Epson DX4000 colour printer connected to it via USB and both work fine. The HDD works flawlessly, you just need to remember that if you havent used it/accessed it for a while, you need to wait a few seconds while the drive wakes up from sleep, otherwise ok. Transfer speeds over wireless are ok for watching movies etc, though copying large files to the drive can be slow.
With the Epson, printing works fine but scanning doesnt, in order to scan you still need to connect the printer directly to the mac.
Im also using the TC for Time Machine and have it backing up both my MBP and my wife’s MB, here so far there have been no issues whatsoever and it has worked great.
The one part that I am sad about and this is true on most routers, is that there is no real capability for bandwidth management, QOS etc on a per computer or per IP level. It would be nice if there was something at a basic level at least.
Set up was easy, the easiest router that I have set up so far in fact. I added the TC to an existing network with a router already plugged in and the TC itself informed me that a NAT was already in existence and that I didnt need two
It then told me exactly
what I needed to disable (on the TC itself) to ensure that things
worked properly. After around 30 minutes (because I went through
all of the options, playing with them), I had the TC up and running
without any issues.It is providing a wireless N network to the two macs in the house and set to only allow N devices to connect, unfortunately, its running over the 2.6ghz spectrum as opposed to the 5ghz because on the 5ghz setting, I couldnt pick up my network downstairs. In the future when we move the TC will be in the living room so I will try changing this then.
I have also got a USB HDD (Western Digital MyBook) and an Epson DX4000 colour printer connected to it via USB and both work fine. The HDD works flawlessly, you just need to remember that if you havent used it/accessed it for a while, you need to wait a few seconds while the drive wakes up from sleep, otherwise ok. Transfer speeds over wireless are ok for watching movies etc, though copying large files to the drive can be slow.
With the Epson, printing works fine but scanning doesnt, in order to scan you still need to connect the printer directly to the mac.
Im also using the TC for Time Machine and have it backing up both my MBP and my wife’s MB, here so far there have been no issues whatsoever and it has worked great.
The one part that I am sad about and this is true on most routers, is that there is no real capability for bandwidth management, QOS etc on a per computer or per IP level. It would be nice if there was something at a basic level at least.
10.5.5 Finally fixes StarCraft and Diablo II
17/10/08 13:53
Ok, so I know that Im a bit late with
this, I actually tried it right after the new update came out but
then I became ill and just didnt get around to it.
Either way, the good news is that SC, DB2 and many other older titles that suffered from the same issue should now work again.
Now lets hope that they bring the new versions out soon.
Either way, the good news is that SC, DB2 and many other older titles that suffered from the same issue should now work again.
Now lets hope that they bring the new versions out soon.
Microsoft Memory Mouse 8000
14/07/08 21:14 Filed in: tech
Laptop Mouse thats also wireless,
bluetooth, has 1GB flash memory in the wireless transceiver and can
be used while charging Read More...
10.5.4 Out - but still no fix for StarCraft
03/07/08 21:21 Filed in: 10.5.4 | OSX
Update
So 10.5.4 came out and me being the
sucker that I am I installed it to see if it would sort out some of
those issues I was having. While it does appear to help with the
slow shutdowns (no need to remove the sleepimage file every now and
then anymore?), it does not fix the issues with Starcraft or Diablo
II or any other application that requires 256 colour support for
that matter.
There are some solutions floating around on the net, that basically involve replacing the kexts from the 10.5.3/4 update(s) with those from 10.5.2 but this seems like a bit of a kludge to me, so hopefully this will be addressed officially at some point. Hopefully before Starcraft 2 comes out
There are some solutions floating around on the net, that basically involve replacing the kexts from the 10.5.3/4 update(s) with those from 10.5.2 but this seems like a bit of a kludge to me, so hopefully this will be addressed officially at some point. Hopefully before Starcraft 2 comes out
10.5.3 Part 2
03/07/08 21:20 Filed in: 10.5.3 | OSX
Update
o I managed to solve the problem
albeit by a roundabout route. What I had to do in the end in order
to make it work was to first install 10.5.2 and then update that to
10.5.3, so it would seem that the combo updater for 10.5.3 is
missing something?
10.5.3 Additional Issues
19/06/08 21:19 Filed in: 10.5.3 | OSX
Update
It seems that 10.5.3. is out to get
me. Not that I believe I am being paranoid or anything but I have
never had this much trouble with an OS X update before and I tend
to be one of the "bleeding edge" crew in terms of installing these
updates.
I am having problems with it now because I finally decided to reinstall my system, my justification being that I have played around with my current system so much and that it has so much crud on there that it would be quicker and easier to reinstall rather than manually clean up.
At the same point though I didnt want to be without my machine for any length of time, yet I didnt want to have to either rush the new installation or try to find the time to do it around the baby and work, so what I decided to do was to cheat a little. I installed OS X 10.5 onto an external USB drive that was connected to my mac and then afterwards booted from that.
This worked like a charm and very soon I was running a clean version of OSX 10.5.1, all well and good so far, I then started the Apple update process which performed various updates, including installing 10.5.3.
The updates went quite well and all of them seemed to install successfully and then I received a message from the 10.5.3 patch that the system would restart once various boot caches had been cleared. Ok, I thought no problem and sure enough the computer restarted quite happily. It then got to the Apple logo with the spinning progress indicator and stayed there like that for an hour, before my patience ran out.
I hard shutdown the machine, restarted it and this time it went ahead and rebooted happily, allowing me to log in and get to the desktop again. I then started installing just the applications that I use daily/weekly (everything else got left off), setting up my email client, firewall and so on. During all of this though I had a couple of odd hiccups, for example mail and/or itunes wouldnt shut down. Mail was also almost always timing out when checking for new messages, sometimes windows wouldnt focus properly and a notification would appear behind an inactive window.
My suspicion here was that the 10.5.3 patch hadnt applied correctly hence the problems, I did try performing some permission repairs, cache cleaning and various other os x maintenance voodoo, which got the system running more or less nicely but still I had the feeling that things were not quite right.
So my plan for today was to put or rather rerun the 10.5.3. combo updater and then afterwards xslimmer and providing all went well, to clone the disk from the external to the internal. This was when I was in my happy place Unfortunately other forces stepped
in here and decided otherwise.
Again the install went successfully, no issues, cleared boot caches, restarted and got stuck on the Apple screen again. So again I waited and nothing happened so again I switched off and powered on as before but the system again got stuck on the Apple logo.
I tried shutting down for a bit and then powering on but it didnt help, I then booted into the original installation on the internal disk and that went fine, so I tried the external again and again it froze. At this point I tried some more voodoo, for example resetting the PRAM and so on but this didnt help either.
Not good - my nice, shiny clean installation was inaccessible.
I booted back into the original install and set the external disk to be the main startup disk (up until now I had been using the option key to bring up the boot menu), I made this change as it would allow me to use some of the startup functionality in the OS X "BIOS".
The first step was to boot into verbose mode (Apple + V), this displays all of the unix/linux type boot up info instead of the Apple logo and enabled me to see that the bootup process was freezing at this point;
localhost DirectoryService[31]: launched version 53 (v514.19)
This didnt say anything to me so I tried googling, unfortunately I couldnt find anything that sufficiently explained either a) what the DirectoryService does b) what 31 means, if anything and c) if the launched version was relevant.
I then tried broadening the search and although a lot of other users had similar issues none had a working solution, though I did come across a post at Macfixit that was very similar to my issue and the user noted there that he had fixed the problem by deleting the DirectoryServices folder from /Library/Preferences.
Being the happy, risk-taker that I am I backed up the aforementioned
folder, then deleted it and tried again, this time I got the
following error;
localhost DirectoryService[31]: dstouch: file was asked to be opened : no such file or directory
Hmmm... thats not a problem I thought, I'll just copy the working versions from my current install, set the permissions and be good to go, which is exactly what I did and exactly what didnt work.
I next tried various things, ranging from repairing the drive, (I was unable to repair permissions on the drive itself while booted from the internal drive, somewhat understandably), removing the files that I had just copied over, removing the whole directory, none of it worked.
I then booted from the OS X installation DVD and used that to repair the permissions on the drive and the drive itself, all of this completed successfully, so I was quite hopeful that it would work now but unfortunately still no joy.
Finally after trying all of that I couldnt see any other option besides a reinstall (something else which is recommended on the web), so I popped in the install DVD again and this time performed an archive and install.
This worked out quite well, the machine booted again It copied across most (I say most
because I havent checked every single thing yet and I'm paranoid
remember? ) of my data, so far so good. I ran
software update again but this time left 10.5.3 off and let
everything else install, tried a few reboots and so on and had
absolutely no problems anywhere.
So with my confidence at a high again, I tried 10.5.3 one more time, again the install completed successfully, again it rebooted, this time though it did something as after a few seconds it rebooted again but after this second reboot it stuck at exactly the same point as last time
Now Im at an impasse of sorts, I dont fully understand why its sticking where it is, so I can try to do some more research there, or I can just do another archive and install, then install 10.5.2 and either leave it at that (I could play starcraft again) or see if 10.5.3 would work better if it were installed on top of 10.5.2 (even though I used the combo updater before). Or I could just install the 10.5.3 update from software update and see if that would be any different than the combo updater? Finally, I could just go clean up the current install as this is already starting to become just as much work...
Still, I dont like giving up on things and Im a sucker for problems, even self generated ones, so I think I will attempt to get to the bottom of this...
I am having problems with it now because I finally decided to reinstall my system, my justification being that I have played around with my current system so much and that it has so much crud on there that it would be quicker and easier to reinstall rather than manually clean up.
At the same point though I didnt want to be without my machine for any length of time, yet I didnt want to have to either rush the new installation or try to find the time to do it around the baby and work, so what I decided to do was to cheat a little. I installed OS X 10.5 onto an external USB drive that was connected to my mac and then afterwards booted from that.
This worked like a charm and very soon I was running a clean version of OSX 10.5.1, all well and good so far, I then started the Apple update process which performed various updates, including installing 10.5.3.
The updates went quite well and all of them seemed to install successfully and then I received a message from the 10.5.3 patch that the system would restart once various boot caches had been cleared. Ok, I thought no problem and sure enough the computer restarted quite happily. It then got to the Apple logo with the spinning progress indicator and stayed there like that for an hour, before my patience ran out.
I hard shutdown the machine, restarted it and this time it went ahead and rebooted happily, allowing me to log in and get to the desktop again. I then started installing just the applications that I use daily/weekly (everything else got left off), setting up my email client, firewall and so on. During all of this though I had a couple of odd hiccups, for example mail and/or itunes wouldnt shut down. Mail was also almost always timing out when checking for new messages, sometimes windows wouldnt focus properly and a notification would appear behind an inactive window.
My suspicion here was that the 10.5.3 patch hadnt applied correctly hence the problems, I did try performing some permission repairs, cache cleaning and various other os x maintenance voodoo, which got the system running more or less nicely but still I had the feeling that things were not quite right.
So my plan for today was to put or rather rerun the 10.5.3. combo updater and then afterwards xslimmer and providing all went well, to clone the disk from the external to the internal. This was when I was in my happy place
Unfortunately other forces stepped
in here and decided otherwise.Again the install went successfully, no issues, cleared boot caches, restarted and got stuck on the Apple screen again. So again I waited and nothing happened so again I switched off and powered on as before but the system again got stuck on the Apple logo.
I tried shutting down for a bit and then powering on but it didnt help, I then booted into the original installation on the internal disk and that went fine, so I tried the external again and again it froze. At this point I tried some more voodoo, for example resetting the PRAM and so on but this didnt help either.
Not good - my nice, shiny clean installation was inaccessible.
I booted back into the original install and set the external disk to be the main startup disk (up until now I had been using the option key to bring up the boot menu), I made this change as it would allow me to use some of the startup functionality in the OS X "BIOS".
The first step was to boot into verbose mode (Apple + V), this displays all of the unix/linux type boot up info instead of the Apple logo and enabled me to see that the bootup process was freezing at this point;
localhost DirectoryService[31]: launched version 53 (v514.19)
This didnt say anything to me so I tried googling, unfortunately I couldnt find anything that sufficiently explained either a) what the DirectoryService does b) what 31 means, if anything and c) if the launched version was relevant.
I then tried broadening the search and although a lot of other users had similar issues none had a working solution, though I did come across a post at Macfixit that was very similar to my issue and the user noted there that he had fixed the problem by deleting the DirectoryServices folder from /Library/Preferences.
Being the happy, risk-taker that I am
I backed up the aforementioned
folder, then deleted it and tried again, this time I got the
following error;localhost DirectoryService[31]: dstouch: file was asked to be opened : no such file or directory
Hmmm... thats not a problem I thought, I'll just copy the working versions from my current install, set the permissions and be good to go, which is exactly what I did and exactly what didnt work.
I next tried various things, ranging from repairing the drive, (I was unable to repair permissions on the drive itself while booted from the internal drive, somewhat understandably), removing the files that I had just copied over, removing the whole directory, none of it worked.
I then booted from the OS X installation DVD and used that to repair the permissions on the drive and the drive itself, all of this completed successfully, so I was quite hopeful that it would work now but unfortunately still no joy.
Finally after trying all of that I couldnt see any other option besides a reinstall (something else which is recommended on the web), so I popped in the install DVD again and this time performed an archive and install.
This worked out quite well, the machine booted again
It copied across most (I say most
because I havent checked every single thing yet and I'm paranoid
remember? ) of my data, so far so good. I ran
software update again but this time left 10.5.3 off and let
everything else install, tried a few reboots and so on and had
absolutely no problems anywhere.So with my confidence at a high again, I tried 10.5.3 one more time, again the install completed successfully, again it rebooted, this time though it did something as after a few seconds it rebooted again but after this second reboot it stuck at exactly the same point as last time
Now Im at an impasse of sorts, I dont fully understand why its sticking where it is, so I can try to do some more research there, or I can just do another archive and install, then install 10.5.2 and either leave it at that (I could play starcraft again) or see if 10.5.3 would work better if it were installed on top of 10.5.2 (even though I used the combo updater before). Or I could just install the 10.5.3 update from software update and see if that would be any different than the combo updater? Finally, I could just go clean up the current install as this is already starting to become just as much work...
Still, I dont like giving up on things and Im a sucker for problems, even self generated ones, so I think I will attempt to get to the bottom of this...
10.5.3 Breaks StarCraft
11/06/08 21:17 Filed in: 10.5.3 | OSX
Update
I found out today that 10.5.3 breaks
StarCraft Basically, after installing 10.5.3 if
you launch StarCraft it will show the initial configuration
dialogue but then crash back to the desktop.
Apparently the reason for this is that StarCraft tries to switch to 256 colour mode but this was disabled by Apple in the latest update, so the game simply crashes.
So far neither Blizzard nor Apple has published a fix, what was disappointing though is that neither of the companies has published this information on their websites. For example I downloaded StarCraft from the Blizzard store and after a 2 hour download, it installed fine but obviously wouldnt launch. No where though on their site do they state it doesnt work with 10.5.3.
This supposedly also impacts Diablo II as well but I havent had an opportunity to test this.
Lets hope that they fix this soon and in the meantime, please consider letting Apple and Blizzard know that they should fix this!
Basically, after installing 10.5.3 if
you launch StarCraft it will show the initial configuration
dialogue but then crash back to the desktop.Apparently the reason for this is that StarCraft tries to switch to 256 colour mode but this was disabled by Apple in the latest update, so the game simply crashes.
So far neither Blizzard nor Apple has published a fix, what was disappointing though is that neither of the companies has published this information on their websites. For example I downloaded StarCraft from the Blizzard store and after a 2 hour download, it installed fine but obviously wouldnt launch. No where though on their site do they state it doesnt work with 10.5.3.
This supposedly also impacts Diablo II as well but I havent had an opportunity to test this.
Lets hope that they fix this soon and in the meantime, please consider letting Apple and Blizzard know that they should fix this!
Macbook and Parallels
28/05/08 21:35 Filed in: Software
Migrating a windows laptop to a
Parallels Virtual Machine Read
More...
Microsoft multitouch demo in Windows 7
28/05/08 21:33 Filed in: Software
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/27/microsoft-shows-off-snippet-of-windows-7-at-d6-reveals-multi/
Seems that they ported the software they used in the table to
desktops and laptops. Not a big surprise but still kind of nice to
see where we could be in a couple of years time, though hopefully
this will be a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
OpenDNS provides free filtering
Im sure that some of you may have
heard of OpenDNS but perhaps like me, you were just using them for
their DNS service.
(OpenDNS provides name servers that contain an index of sorts for sites on the internet so that your computer can find them when you try to access them - at least thats the over simplified version)
I found out though that if you go and register with them for free, you gain access to a whole load of other options, reporting for example, content filtering (you can filter by categories, e.g. Pornorgraphy, Nudity, Religion and so on) or by domain. I think its great for anyone with kids who wants a bit more control over what they are up to online.
As you are making these changes on the OpenDNS server, its quite easy to keep track of things and slightly more difficult (though not impossible) for someone to circumvent. It helps of course if you configure the DNS addresses on your home router and then distribute the IP address to the other computers via DHCP or static DHCP.
Anyways, take a look perhaps some of you will find it useful(?)
(OpenDNS provides name servers that contain an index of sorts for sites on the internet so that your computer can find them when you try to access them - at least thats the over simplified version)
I found out though that if you go and register with them for free, you gain access to a whole load of other options, reporting for example, content filtering (you can filter by categories, e.g. Pornorgraphy, Nudity, Religion and so on) or by domain. I think its great for anyone with kids who wants a bit more control over what they are up to online.
As you are making these changes on the OpenDNS server, its quite easy to keep track of things and slightly more difficult (though not impossible) for someone to circumvent. It helps of course if you configure the DNS addresses on your home router and then distribute the IP address to the other computers via DHCP or static DHCP.
Anyways, take a look perhaps some of you will find it useful(?)
Playing with Twitterific
27/05/08 21:40 Filed in: Software
Decided to give in and finally try
twitter and see what all of the fuss is about - any of you on
there?
http://www.twitter.com/aproudlove
http://www.twitter.com/aproudlove
Macbook and Macbook Pro connectivity issues
27/05/08 21:38 Filed in: Macbook
I recently bought my wife a 2.2ghz
Macbook, which shes really happy with. I set up screen sharing the
other day, tried it and it worked, great I thought.
Later on though, when I wanted to copy some files over to her drop box, I couldnt connect to her machine and now even screen sharing doesnt work.
Ive checked her security preferences and she has screen and file sharing enabled, I have rights as well... cant see whats wrong for the life of me at the moment.
Later on though, when I wanted to copy some files over to her drop box, I couldnt connect to her machine and now even screen sharing doesnt work.
Ive checked her security preferences and she has screen and file sharing enabled, I have rights as well... cant see whats wrong for the life of me at the moment.
Front Row Plugins
20/04/08 21:46 Filed in: Software
I came across a couple of really
useful Front Row plugins today totally by accident while browsing
for something else.
The first addresses something that I mentioned in a previous post which is the ability to show posters and movie info for files in your movies folder, just as the movie trailers do in Front Row. Its called Sapphire and can be downloaded from here, make sure to check out the screenshots and the manual.
The next plugin(s) are for EyeTV and Front Row, it basically adds menu options in Front Row and EyeTV to allow you to switch between the two gracefully, its called PyeTV and is available from here.
The final plugin allows ads to be skipped in EyeTV recordings but I havent had opportunity to try this yet but it can be found here.
The first addresses something that I mentioned in a previous post which is the ability to show posters and movie info for files in your movies folder, just as the movie trailers do in Front Row. Its called Sapphire and can be downloaded from here, make sure to check out the screenshots and the manual.
The next plugin(s) are for EyeTV and Front Row, it basically adds menu options in Front Row and EyeTV to allow you to switch between the two gracefully, its called PyeTV and is available from here.
The final plugin allows ads to be skipped in EyeTV recordings but I havent had opportunity to try this yet but it can be found here.
Slow shutdown - yet again
15/04/08 21:54 Filed in: Macbook
As I mentioned in the comments to one
of the posts, my slow shutdown problem resurfaced again two days
ago. I tried the same trick as before, disabling hibernatemode and
then deleting the sleepimage before re-enabling hibernatemode
again. Guess what? Problem gone...
At least until next time
At least until next time
Slow shutdown with Leopard and hibernate
05/04/08 22:01 Filed in: Macbook
Just for kicks yesterday, I reset my
hibernatemode to 3 as I had previously set it to 0 as outlined in
one of my posts below.
Interestingly enough, my MBP now shuts down just as quickly as it did when I had hibernatemode set to 0 and thats also without having to eject my windows bootcamp partition.
At the moment I have no idea why this is the case, I still have to check my log files but I thought I would share the info at least.
Interestingly enough, my MBP now shuts down just as quickly as it did when I had hibernatemode set to 0 and thats also without having to eject my windows bootcamp partition.
At the moment I have no idea why this is the case, I still have to check my log files but I thought I would share the info at least.
Slow shutdown with Leopard - steps taken so far - Summary post
03/04/08 22:04 Filed in: Macbook
I thought it might be useful for me to
summarise what has happened so far and what steps Ive taken, mainly
for anyone new coming across this via Google and also just to
attempt to make sense of the jumble of posts that I have so far. So
here goes
My new MBP (2.6GHz Merom / 320GB HDD / 4GB RAM) started to take a while to shutdown, roughly from 50 seconds to a minute, which is a big difference from the 7 seconds a new install takes. During the shutdown process I would see the "progress cog" appear on my desktop and spin around for a bit until the computer shutdown. Sleep also took a long time, regardless of whether I had 2GB or 4GB of RAM.
I initially had this problem on my original core due MBP and first noticed it when I was testing my new 2.6ghz MBP with a fresh install of Leopard.
The reason that the issue got passed onto my new MBP was because I wanted to keep the bigger drive, so I unplugged it from the original MBP and swapped it with the drive in the new MBP, so I got the extra space at the cost of the slow shutdown/sleep.
So far I have tried the following, ranging from the standard Mac voodoo to the non-standard...
I couldnt find anything else in the logs to indicate why things were so slow and so I decided to see if the menu applets or widgets that I use were causing an issue. So I created a new user account with no menu items besides the standard Apple ones and also no widgets running (in hindsight I should have tried this as part of Phase1).
This wasnt the solution I was looking for though as the result was still the same, the shutdown was just as slow with the new user as with my standard account.
I next installed Leopard onto an external HDD, booted from that, applied all of the updates to date and tried a few shutdowns and restarts and it was amazing how fast it was compared to my current install.
At this stage I was debating just dragging over my apps and documents to the new installation and then cloning it to my internal drive but I didnt want to go through the hassle of authorizing and deauthorizing etc in iTunes and I also didnt want to give up, I wanted to find the cause and learn basically.
I went back into the new user account and started to compare the console logs from the new account with the old ones but couldnt find anything to suggest what could be the cause, so I started Googling.
Via Google I found some forums where people were mentioning external drives as causes for slow shutdowns, which gave me an idea that perhaps my bootcamp partition was influencing my shutdown. I tried unmounting the window drive and my computer was able to shutdown in 15 seconds as opposed to a minute.
I was (and still am) in the process of trying to determine why this was when a guy Bob posted in the comments and let me know about the terminal commands to disable hibernate, which he found on macosxhints (theyre a couple of posts below this one if youre interested).
I tried this out - leaving the windows partition still mounted and the computer shutdown again very quickly, around 7 to 15 seconds.
So thats the stage that I am currently at and I am now trying to understand why. If anyone would care to share their insight here it would be more than welcome
The issue
My new MBP (2.6GHz Merom / 320GB HDD / 4GB RAM) started to take a while to shutdown, roughly from 50 seconds to a minute, which is a big difference from the 7 seconds a new install takes. During the shutdown process I would see the "progress cog" appear on my desktop and spin around for a bit until the computer shutdown. Sleep also took a long time, regardless of whether I had 2GB or 4GB of RAM.
I initially had this problem on my original core due MBP and first noticed it when I was testing my new 2.6ghz MBP with a fresh install of Leopard.
The reason that the issue got passed onto my new MBP was because I wanted to keep the bigger drive, so I unplugged it from the original MBP and swapped it with the drive in the new MBP, so I got the extra space at the cost of the slow shutdown/sleep.
Steps taken so far
So far I have tried the following, ranging from the standard Mac voodoo to the non-standard...
Phase 1
- Repaired permissions
- Ran monthly scripts
- Cleared out caches (internet, kernel, system, font etc)
- Verified the drive (no errors)
- Checked out and cleared out any unnecessary items from startup items
- Cleared out any old preference settings for uninstalled applications
Phase 2
- Examined the console logs, found some messages first that suggested it may be parallels trying to close down its network connections.
- To check, I uninstalled Parallels but there was no change and things were still just as slow. I went back to the console and found that EyeTV Helper couldnt quit.
- I started looking into EyeTV as a possible culprit but it seems that this may have been a wild goose chase.
- Checked if EyeTV was up to date (at the time it was).
- Tried manually quitting the process via activity monitor and then shutting down but shutdown was still slow.
- During this time, I discovered a utility called SmartSleep (its in an earlier blog post), which to cut it short puts the computer to sleep instead of hibernating it based on the battery level. I installed this and the sleep time was dramatically reduced but the slow shutdown still remained.
Phase 3
I couldnt find anything else in the logs to indicate why things were so slow and so I decided to see if the menu applets or widgets that I use were causing an issue. So I created a new user account with no menu items besides the standard Apple ones and also no widgets running (in hindsight I should have tried this as part of Phase1).
This wasnt the solution I was looking for though as the result was still the same, the shutdown was just as slow with the new user as with my standard account.
I next installed Leopard onto an external HDD, booted from that, applied all of the updates to date and tried a few shutdowns and restarts and it was amazing how fast it was compared to my current install.
At this stage I was debating just dragging over my apps and documents to the new installation and then cloning it to my internal drive but I didnt want to go through the hassle of authorizing and deauthorizing etc in iTunes and I also didnt want to give up, I wanted to find the cause and learn basically.
I went back into the new user account and started to compare the console logs from the new account with the old ones but couldnt find anything to suggest what could be the cause, so I started Googling.
Via Google I found some forums where people were mentioning external drives as causes for slow shutdowns, which gave me an idea that perhaps my bootcamp partition was influencing my shutdown. I tried unmounting the window drive and my computer was able to shutdown in 15 seconds as opposed to a minute.
I was (and still am) in the process of trying to determine why this was when a guy Bob posted in the comments and let me know about the terminal commands to disable hibernate, which he found on macosxhints (theyre a couple of posts below this one if youre interested).
I tried this out - leaving the windows partition still mounted and the computer shutdown again very quickly, around 7 to 15 seconds.
So thats the stage that I am currently at and I am now trying to understand why. If anyone would care to share their insight here it would be more than welcome
Slow Shutdown with Leopard - Possible Solution 2
03/04/08 22:03 Filed in: Macbook
Hi, I thought I would share with you
all something that Bob posted in the comments that has also
resulted in an improvement in the shutdown times of our macs, this
is something that he mentioned finding over at macosxhints.com but
I thought I would share it here as well as its useful
information.
For this solution, you will need to use the terminal but its quite easy, open the terminal and enter the following commands pressing enter after each one (NB: After the first command you will be prompted for you password, enter it and after that you should not be prompted again).
After entering these commands my MBP shuts down in seconds, mainly because its not creating a 4GB sleepimage or trying to page the contents of RAM there. Im trying to understand now though what the correlation between the windows drive and sleep is, as unmounting windows also has the same effect...
For this solution, you will need to use the terminal but its quite easy, open the terminal and enter the following commands pressing enter after each one (NB: After the first command you will be prompted for you password, enter it and after that you should not be prompted again).
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=false
sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage
After entering these commands my MBP shuts down in seconds, mainly because its not creating a 4GB sleepimage or trying to page the contents of RAM there. Im trying to understand now though what the correlation between the windows drive and sleep is, as unmounting windows also has the same effect...
Slow shutdown with Leopard - further examination
01/04/08 22:07 Filed in: Macbook
I have been trying to see if I can get
to the bottom of what is going on with the computer during the
shutdown process. At the moment, theres not really too much new to
add as the situation is still the same, eject the Bootcamp disk and
the computer shutdowns quickly, dont eject it and it doesnt.
I have tried uninstalling MacFUSE and NTFS-3G (instructions for uninstalling MacFUSE here and NTFS-3G here, download the dmg, mount and inside follow the uninstall readme).
This doesnt seem to have made any difference however, so its back to the drawing board for now.
I have tried uninstalling MacFUSE and NTFS-3G (instructions for uninstalling MacFUSE here and NTFS-3G here, download the dmg, mount and inside follow the uninstall readme).
This doesnt seem to have made any difference however, so its back to the drawing board for now.
Slow shutdown with Leopard - Possible Solution?
01/04/08 22:04 Filed in: Macbook
I was just playing around with this
again and remembered that in the past, having external drives
connected could cause the computer to shutdown slowly, one of the
things that didnt occur to me until now though, was that my Windows
Bootcamp partition may be an external drive of sorts, or at the
least, may be affecting the shutdown cycle.
So I ejected it and then tried shutting down. The computer now shuts off in 15 seconds or less as opposed to almost a minute before, it still doesnt seem as fast as a new install of Leopard but its definitely a big improvement.
The question now though is why or what is it doing with the Windows partition before it shuts down? It also possibly invalidates the earlier line of research I was following with the menu applets, so clearly I need to look into this some more but its the first definite improvement I have seen.
If you try this and it improves your shutdown speed please let me know, it will be interesting to compare.
So I ejected it and then tried shutting down. The computer now shuts off in 15 seconds or less as opposed to almost a minute before, it still doesnt seem as fast as a new install of Leopard but its definitely a big improvement.
The question now though is why or what is it doing with the Windows partition before it shuts down? It also possibly invalidates the earlier line of research I was following with the menu applets, so clearly I need to look into this some more but its the first definite improvement I have seen.
If you try this and it improves your shutdown speed please let me know, it will be interesting to compare.
Slow Shutdown with Leopard - update
01/04/08 22:01 Filed in: Macbook
So as I mentioned yesterday, I managed
to find time to partition an external drive and install Leopard on
it, plus all of the updates currently available.
Afterwards, I did a couple of restart and shutdown tests and it was fast, in fact it surprised me how fast it was having been used to the time my current install of Leopard takes to slowdown. The shutdown speed wasnt the only improvement though as the startup time was also noticeably faster.
Admittedly this is a new installation of the OS, which as most of us know, tends to be faster than a "used" install as a general rule of thumb, so Ive now set about trying to determine what is causing the issue on my current installation by trying to break the new one.
So far in the limited amount of testing that I have had time to do, I have installed some of the menubar applications that I use often (I say some because I have not yet installed QuickSilver, Slim Battery Monitor and SMCFanControl). I have installed the following programs though and have not noticed any changes in performance; SmartSleep, iStatMenus.
I have also exported the console log from the new install in order to compare it with my current one; for reference here is a copy.
I plan to add the other menu items as mentioned above as well as EyeTV and also VMWare later on to see if one of them is the culprit but in the meantime I want to review the two console logs. I know it would be quite easy to migrate my settings onto the new install now and then clone that image back to my internal drive but it seems like the easy way out and I would like to beat this. Plus I cant be bothered at the moment to remember to deauthorize itunes and all of those other little things that you need to do in advance.
As always if any of you have any ideas, please let me know.
Afterwards, I did a couple of restart and shutdown tests and it was fast, in fact it surprised me how fast it was having been used to the time my current install of Leopard takes to slowdown. The shutdown speed wasnt the only improvement though as the startup time was also noticeably faster.
Admittedly this is a new installation of the OS, which as most of us know, tends to be faster than a "used" install as a general rule of thumb, so Ive now set about trying to determine what is causing the issue on my current installation by trying to break the new one.
So far in the limited amount of testing that I have had time to do, I have installed some of the menubar applications that I use often (I say some because I have not yet installed QuickSilver, Slim Battery Monitor and SMCFanControl). I have installed the following programs though and have not noticed any changes in performance; SmartSleep, iStatMenus.
I have also exported the console log from the new install in order to compare it with my current one; for reference here is a copy.
I plan to add the other menu items as mentioned above as well as EyeTV and also VMWare later on to see if one of them is the culprit but in the meantime I want to review the two console logs. I know it would be quite easy to migrate my settings onto the new install now and then clone that image back to my internal drive but it seems like the easy way out and I would like to beat this. Plus I cant be bothered at the moment to remember to deauthorize itunes and all of those other little things that you need to do in advance.
As always if any of you have any ideas, please let me know.
4/1/08 9:30:39 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2]
BootCacheControl: could not open /var/db/BootCache.playlist: 4/1/08
9:30:39 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] No such file or directory
4/1/08 9:30:40 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] launchctl: Please
convert the following to launchd:
/etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist 4/1/08 9:30:40 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) Unknown key:
SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 9:30:40 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ...Generating key pair... 4/1/08
9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ...creating
certificate... 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Serial Number : 6A 4E 20 40 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Issuer Name : 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Common Name :
com.apple.systemdefault 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Org : System Identity 4/1/08
9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Subject Name : 4/1/08
9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Common Name :
com.apple.systemdefault 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Org : System Identity 4/1/08
9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Cert Sig Algorithm : OID
: < 06 09 2A 86 48 86 F7 0D 01 01 05 > 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] alg params : 05 00 4/1/08 9:31:02
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Not Before : 07:31:02 Apr 1,
2008 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Not After :
07:31:02 Mar 27, 2028 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Pub Key Algorithm : OID : < 06
09 2A 86 48 86 F7 0D 01 01 01 > 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] alg params : 05 00 4/1/08 9:31:02
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Pub key Bytes : Length 140 bytes
: 30 81 89 02 81 81 00 BD ... 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] CSSM Key :4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Algorithm : RSA 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Key Size : 1024 bits 4/1/08 9:31:02
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Key Use : CSSM_KEYUSE_ENCRYPT
CSSM_KEYUSE_VERIFY CSSM_KEYUSE_WRAP 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Signature : 128 bytes : 4F 29 CD 44
F6 8F 94 8B ... 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Other field: : OID : < 06 0C 60 86 48 01 86 F8 4D 02 01 01 01 17
> 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Other field:
: OID : < 06 0C 60 86 48 01 86 F8 4D 02 01 01 01 16 > 4/1/08
9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Extension struct : OID :
< 06 03 55 1D 25 > 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Critical : FALSE 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] purpose 0 : OID : < 06 09 2A 86
48 86 F7 63 64 04 04 > 4/1/08 9:31:02 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ..cert stored in Keychain. 4/1/08
9:31:02 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ..identity registered
for domain com.apple.systemdefault. 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ...Generating key pair... 4/1/08
9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ...creating
certificate... 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Serial Number : 3E B6 EE CB 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Issuer Name : 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Common Name :
com.apple.kerberos.kdc 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Org : System Identity 4/1/08
9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Subject Name : 4/1/08
9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Common Name :
com.apple.kerberos.kdc 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Org : System Identity 4/1/08
9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Cert Sig Algorithm : OID
: < 06 09 2A 86 48 86 F7 0D 01 01 05 > 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] alg params : 05 00 4/1/08 9:31:03
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Not Before : 07:31:03 Apr 1,
2008 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Not After :
07:31:03 Mar 27, 2028 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Pub Key Algorithm : OID : < 06
09 2A 86 48 86 F7 0D 01 01 01 > 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] alg params : 05 00 4/1/08 9:31:03
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Pub key Bytes : Length 140 bytes
: 30 81 89 02 81 81 00 B7 ... 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] CSSM Key :4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Algorithm : RSA 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Key Size : 1024 bits 4/1/08 9:31:03
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Key Use : CSSM_KEYUSE_ENCRYPT
CSSM_KEYUSE_VERIFY CSSM_KEYUSE_WRAP 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Signature : 128 bytes : 13 83 C3 4A
EA 6F 65 E7 ... 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Other field: : OID : < 06 0C 60 86 48 01 86 F8 4D 02 01 01 01 17
> 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Other field:
: OID : < 06 0C 60 86 48 01 86 F8 4D 02 01 01 01 16 > 4/1/08
9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Extension struct : OID :
< 06 03 55 1D 25 > 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Critical : FALSE 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] purpose 0 : OID : < 06 09 2A 86
48 86 F7 63 64 04 04 > 4/1/08 9:31:03 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ..cert stored in Keychain. 4/1/08
9:31:03 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] ..identity registered
for domain com.apple.kerberos.kdc. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] launchctl: Error unloading:
com.apple.kdcmond 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
/usr/sbin/kadmin.local-q add_principal -randkey
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] WARNING: no
policy specified for
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4;
defaulting to no policy 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Authenticating as principal
root/admin@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 with
password. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Principal
"afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4"
created. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
/usr/sbin/kadmin.local-q ktadd
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Authenticating as
principal
root/admin@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 with
password. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry
for principal
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type Triple DES cbc mode with HMAC/sha1
added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry for principal
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type ArcFour with HMAC/md5 added to keytab
WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry for principal
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type DES cbc mode with CRC-32 added to
keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] /usr/bin/defaults write
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer kerberosPrincipal
afpserver/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
/usr/sbin/kadmin.local-q add_principal -randkey
cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] WARNING: no
policy specified for
cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4;
defaulting to no policy 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Authenticating as principal
root/admin@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 with
password. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Principal
"cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4"
created. 4/1/08 9:31:05 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
/usr/sbin/kadmin.local-q ktadd
cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Authenticating as
principal
root/admin@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 with
password. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry
for principal
cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type Triple DES cbc mode with HMAC/sha1
added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry for principal
cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type ArcFour with HMAC/md5 added to keytab
WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry for principal
cifs/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type DES cbc mode with CRC-32 added to
keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] /usr/bin/defaults write
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server
LocalKerberosRealm
LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 4/1/08 9:31:06
AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] /usr/sbin/kadmin.local-q
add_principal -randkey
vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] WARNING: no
policy specified for
vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4;
defaulting to no policy 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Authenticating as principal
root/admin@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 with
password. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
Principal
"vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4"
created. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
/usr/sbin/kadmin.local-q ktadd
vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Authenticating as
principal
root/admin@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 with
password. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry
for principal
vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type Triple DES cbc mode with HMAC/sha1
added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry for principal
vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type ArcFour with HMAC/md5 added to keytab
WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56] Entry for principal
vnc/LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4@LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4
with kvno 3, encryption type DES cbc mode with CRC-32 added to
keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5.keytab. 4/1/08 9:31:06 AM
com.apple.configureLocalKDC[56]
LKDC:SHA1.800D5674405F377B9E6690FB821E9508FAFD69D4 4/1/08 9:31:11
AM com.apple.ATSServer[133] FODBCheck: New annex file created
4/1/08 9:31:20 AM [0x0-0x4004].com.apple.SetupAssistant[142]
...System identity already exists for domain
com.apple.systemdefault. Done. 4/1/08 9:34:30 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key:
SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 9:35:53 AM
[0x0-0x4004].com.apple.SetupAssistant[142] Creating socket...
4/1/08 9:35:53 AM [0x0-0x4004].com.apple.SetupAssistant[142]
Connection in progress (will timeout in 5 seconds)... 4/1/08
9:35:53 AM [0x0-0x4004].com.apple.SetupAssistant[142] PPPoE can't
connect the socket, errno = 65 4/1/08 9:35:53 AM
[0x0-0x4004].com.apple.SetupAssistant[142] PPPoE Server not
found... 4/1/08 9:37:20 AM Setup Assistant[142] .Mac cert config
scheduled 4/1/08 9:37:30 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[138]) Exited: Terminated
4/1/08 9:37:30 AM com.apple.KerberosAutoConfig[274] The machine is
standalone 4/1/08 9:37:30 AM com.apple.KerberosAutoConfig[274]
Removing /Library/Preferences/edu.mit.Kerberos 4/1/08 9:37:32 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[270])
Exited: Terminated 4/1/08 9:37:34 AM com.apple.ATSServer[299]
FODBCheck: New annex file created 4/1/08 9:37:39 AM SyncServer[313]
SyncServer: Reaping records for inactive clients. Next reap on
2008-05-16 09:37:39 +0200 4/1/08 9:37:45 AM
SoftwareUpdateCheck[318] Checking for updates 4/1/08 9:37:47 AM
SystemUIServer[297] Could not find image named 'TMDisk'. 4/1/08
9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Contrast.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Contrast
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Geometry.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Geometry.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Geometry.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Geometry.
4/1/08 9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Geometry.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Geometry
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/VPT.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/VPT.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/VPT.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/VPT.
4/1/08 9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/VPT.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/VPT
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Bezel.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Bezel.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Bezel.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Bezel.
4/1/08 9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Bezel.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Bezel
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/ExtendedTouchSwitch.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/ExtendedTouchSwitch.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/ExtendedTouchSwitch.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/ExtendedTouchSwitch.
4/1/08 9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/ExtendedTouchSwitch.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/ExtendedTouchSwitch
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/PowerMode.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/PowerMode.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/PowerMode.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/PowerMode.
4/1/08 9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/PowerMode.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/PowerMode
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Authorization.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Authorization.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Authorization.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Authorization.
4/1/08 9:40:56 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[362]
objc[362]: Class O3Panel is implemented in both
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/Authorization.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/Authorization
and
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/TVOptions.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/TVOptions.
Using implementation from
/System/Library/MonitorPanels/AppleDisplay.monitorPanels/Contents/Resources/TVOptions.monitorPanel/Contents/MacOS/TVOptions.
4/1/08 9:46:51 AM com.apple.loginwindow[267] Shutdown NOW! 4/1/08
9:47:58 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] launchctl: Please convert
the following to launchd: /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist
4/1/08 9:47:58 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) Unknown
key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 9:47:58 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 9:48:16 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[108])
Exited: Terminated 4/1/08 9:48:35 AM Software Update[141]
arguments=(null) 4/1/08 9:48:57 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2]
BootCacheControl: could not fetch history: Cannot allocate memory
4/1/08 9:48:57 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] BootCacheControl:
could not stop cache/fetch history: Cannot allocate memory 4/1/08
10:14:17 AM com.apple.launchd[101] (com.apple.pboard[122]) Exited:
Terminated 4/1/08 10:14:17 AM com.apple.launchd[101]
(com.apple.UserEventAgent-Aqua[120]) Exited: Terminated 4/1/08
10:14:26 AM com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent[292] Tue Apr 1
10:14:26 andrew-proudloves-macbook-pro.local AirPort Base Station
Agent[292] : 3891612: (connectAndCheck) Untrusted apps are not
allowed to connect to or launch Window Server before login. 4/1/08
10:14:26 AM com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent[292]
_RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection
to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL. 4/1/08
10:14:27 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.installdb.system)
Throttling respawn: Will start in 2 seconds 4/1/08 10:14:37 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.installdb.system) Throttling
respawn: Will start in 2 seconds 4/1/08 10:16:07 AM
com.apple.dyld[424] update_dyld_shared_cache[424] regenerated cache
for arch=i3864/1/08 10:16:08 AM com.apple.dyld[814]
update_dyld_shared_cache[814] current cache invalid because
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/AE.framework/Versions/A/AE
has changed 4/1/08 10:16:12 AM com.apple.dyld[814]
update_dyld_shared_cache[814] for arch=i386 failed: read failure
copying dylib errno=0 for
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
while copying
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
to shared cache 4/1/08 10:16:12 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(com.apple.dyld) Throttling respawn: Will start in 56 seconds
4/1/08 10:17:12 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld[821])
Exited abnormally: Segmentation fault 4/1/08 10:17:12 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld) Throttling respawn: Will
start in 57 seconds 4/1/08 10:18:02 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(0x10d5d0.update_dyld_shar[1336]) Check-in of Mach service failed.
PID 1336 is not privileged: com.apple.dyld 4/1/08 10:18:09 AM
com.apple.dyld[1337] update_dyld_shared_cache[1337] current cache
invalid because
/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLook.framework/Versions/A/QuickLook
has changed 4/1/08 10:18:17 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(com.apple.installdb.system) Throttling respawn: Will start in 4
seconds 4/1/08 10:18:20 AM com.apple.dyld[1337]
update_dyld_shared_cache[1337] for arch=i386 failed: could not
resolve _CGSGetGestureEventSubmask from
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/HIToolbox
in
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/HIToolbox
4/1/08 10:18:20 AM com.apple.dyld[1337]
update_dyld_shared_cache[1337] for arch=i386 failed: read failure
copying dylib errno=2 for /usr/lib/libsasl2.2.dylib while copying
/usr/lib/libsasl2.2.dylib to shared cache 4/1/08 10:18:20 AM
com.apple.dyld[1337] update_dyld_shared_cache[1337] for arch=i386
failed: read failure copying dylib errno=2 for
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageCapture.framework/Versions/A/ImageCapture
while copying
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageCapture.framework/Versions/A/ImageCapture
to shared cache 4/1/08 10:18:20 AM com.apple.dyld[1337]
update_dyld_shared_cache[1337] for arch=i386 failed: read failure
copying dylib errno=2 for
/System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryService
while copying
/System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryService
to shared cache 4/1/08 10:18:20 AM com.apple.dyld[1337]
update_dyld_shared_cache[1337] for arch=i386 failed: read failure
copying dylib errno=2 for
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QD.framework/Versions/A/QD
while copying
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QD.framework/Versions/A/QD
to shared cache 4/1/08 10:18:42 AM
[0x0-0x18018].com.apple.SoftwareUpdate[270] reboot: / is busy
updating; waiting for lock 4/1/08 10:21:33 AM
com.apple.launchctl.System[2] launchctl: Please convert the
following to launchd: /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist
4/1/08 10:21:33 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) Unknown
key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 10:21:33 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 10:22:17 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[102])
Exited: Terminated 4/1/08 10:25:56 AM com.apple.firmwaresyncd[27]
kextload: /System/Library/Extensions/msdosfs.kext loaded
successfully 4/1/08 10:37:41 AM System Preferences[252]
SmartSleepPref setStatus: file does not exist yet - copying 4/1/08
10:37:41 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.apple.systempreferences[252]
launchdworkaround: starting 4/1/08 10:37:41 AM
de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon[260] SmartSleepDaemon: setting hibernation
state to: 0 4/1/08 10:40:38 AM com.apple.launchd[108]
([0x0-0x9009].com.apple.systemuiserver[124]) Exited: Terminated
4/1/08 10:40:45 AM SystemUIServer[293] MenuCrackersee
http://sourceforge.net/projects/menucrackerMenuCracker is now
loaded. Ready to accept new menus. Ignore the failure message that
follow. 4/1/08 10:40:45 AM SystemUIServer[293] failed to load Menu
Extra: NSBundle (loaded) 4/1/08 10:40:45 AM SystemUIServer[293]
MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusCPU'. 4/1/08 10:41:02 AM
SystemUIServer[293] MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusMemory'. 4/1/08
10:41:16 AM SystemUIServer[293] MenuCracker: Loading
'iStatMenusDisks'. 4/1/08 10:41:44 AM SystemUIServer[293]
MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusNetwork'. 4/1/08 10:42:22 AM
SystemUIServer[293] MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusTemps'. 4/1/08
10:43:32 AM com.apple.launchctl.System[2] launchctl: Please convert
the following to launchd: /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist
4/1/08 10:43:32 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd) Unknown
key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 10:43:32 AM com.apple.launchd[1]
(org.ntp.ntpd) Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight 4/1/08 10:43:43 AM
de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon[38] SmartSleepDaemon: machine d 4/1/08
10:43:43 AM de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon[38] oes not support sleep.
4/1/08 10:43:44 AM de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon[38] SmartSleepDaemon:
machine does not support sleep. 4/1/08 10:43:51 AM
com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[79])
Exited: Terminated 4/1/08 10:43:53 AM Dock[100]
_DESCRegisterDockExtraClient failed 268435459 4/1/08 10:43:55 AM
SystemUIServer[101] MenuCrackersee
http://sourceforge.net/projects/menucrackerMenuCracker is now
loaded. Ready to accept new menus. Ignore the failure message that
follow. 4/1/08 10:43:56 AM SystemUIServer[101] failed to load Menu
Extra: NSBundle (loaded) 4/1/08 10:43:56 AM SystemUIServer[101]
MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusCPU'. 4/1/08 10:43:56 AM
SystemUIServer[101] MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusMemory'. 4/1/08
10:43:57 AM SystemUIServer[101] MenuCracker: Loading
'iStatMenusDisks'. 4/1/08 10:43:57 AM SystemUIServer[101]
MenuCracker: Loading 'iStatMenusNetwork'. 4/1/08 10:43:57 AM
SystemUIServer[101] MenuCracker: Loading
'iStatMenusTemps'.Short update - slow shutdown
27/03/08 22:12 Filed in: Macbook
So I managed to find some time to look
at the slow shutdown issue again, well at least a couple of minutes
anyway. I created a new account on the mbp and started in that,
making sure that none of my startup items from my present account
were loading (I left the ones in the /library/preferencepanes on
purpose. Sure enough it took a while to shutdown as well, which
suggests that its a system wide issue as opposed to being limited
to my user account.
During the weekend I also prepared and partition an external hdd ready to install leopard onto for further testing but I still want to see if I cant get to the bottom of this.
The thing thats been holding me back though is "Life on Mars", which is a BBC TV series, so far its been great and if Ive managed to find some time somewhere I have been watching that instead... bad bad but its definitely worth checking out if you havent done so already.
Maybe when I finish watching it I will finally sort this problem out?
During the weekend I also prepared and partition an external hdd ready to install leopard onto for further testing but I still want to see if I cant get to the bottom of this.
The thing thats been holding me back though is "Life on Mars", which is a BBC TV series, so far its been great and if Ive managed to find some time somewhere I have been watching that instead... bad bad but its definitely worth checking out if you havent done so already.
Maybe when I finish watching it I will finally sort this problem out?
Quicktime focus issue - spacebar etc not working
One issue that Ive came across with
Quicktime (and judging by the number of posts about it that Ive
came across on the internet Im not the only one), is the issue
where Quicktime stops responding to keyboard commands, for example
the spacebar no longer plays or pauses and so on.
It mainly seems to occur if you put a video into fullscreen and then for whatever reason, close fullscreen but still live the window with the video open on the desktop. Afterwards it will not respond to any keyboard commands unless you put it back into fullscreen.
Tabbing between applications until you get back to Quicktime does not resolve the problem, neither does moving it to a different workspace.
Other posts on the internet suggest reinstalling Quicktime by downloading the standalone file from Apple. Although I havent tried this yet, I have found a workaround that seems to fix the issue temporarily.
It appears though, that minimising Quicktime to the dock and then restoring it, is enough to put the focus back on the application.
Update : It seems that my solution may not be as reliable as I first thought, Ive tried it just now and it didnt work... will take another look at it and post anything I find here.
It mainly seems to occur if you put a video into fullscreen and then for whatever reason, close fullscreen but still live the window with the video open on the desktop. Afterwards it will not respond to any keyboard commands unless you put it back into fullscreen.
Tabbing between applications until you get back to Quicktime does not resolve the problem, neither does moving it to a different workspace.
Other posts on the internet suggest reinstalling Quicktime by downloading the standalone file from Apple. Although I havent tried this yet, I have found a workaround that seems to fix the issue temporarily.
It appears though, that minimising Quicktime to the dock and then restoring it, is enough to put the focus back on the application.
Update : It seems that my solution may not be as reliable as I first thought, Ive tried it just now and it didnt work... will take another look at it and post anything I find here.
Noise Ninja
If you take any photos in higher isos
- say 400 upwards or just in dim light, you should really check out
Noise Ninja, it does an amazing job of removing noise from the
photos. I bought a license for it today as it really impressed me
with what it did for our photos.
Syncserver Crash
Every time I opened mail.app (under
Leopard 10.5.2), I got a dialogue that syncserver had quit
unexpectedly. I couldnt find anything wrong though and a quick
search on google also didnt turn up anything that seemed to relate
to me. I did see a post about someone getting the error while using
.mac though and this caused me to check my .mac syncing.
Funnily enough it had been disabled which was weird, so I reenabled it and then had to tell it to rewrite the items on .mac with what was on my computer but afterwards it synced ok and also took away my mail.app problem.
Funnily enough it had been disabled which was weird, so I reenabled it and then had to tell it to rewrite the items on .mac with what was on my computer but afterwards it synced ok and also took away my mail.app problem.