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Coming across the SSD wire is news of a tropical storm (01M) spinning around in the Mediterranean Sea. Tropical cyclones are not actually unheard of there, however, they are extremely rare.
Earlier this month my e-mail inbox became incredible crowded with messages from Twitter– every single reply, mention, favorite, retweet, etc. was causing Twitter to send me an individual message. Turns out Twitter added these notifications (which had previously been reserved for direct messages– DMs), but then opted all their users in by default (semi-obnoxious).
Luckily, they can be easily turned off by logging into Twitter, going to your Twitter profile page and clicking on the “profile edit” (your username with a picture) link (top right). On the dropdown, click settings, then click on the notifications tag, where you’ll be presented with the image below. Uncheck/check as you see fit. You can also just click here which will bring you to this page (will probably prompt for credentials) until Twitter changes their site structure.
Now that I have essentially become a fully-converted Mac user, I’ve pretty much smoothed out all the “transitional” kinks going from Windows to OS X. This involved making sure my computer could do everything that I had asked of it before.
One thing that was a hinderance for the longest time was being unable to find a simple graphics editor to approximate Microsoft Paint (which ships with the OS). While OS X ships with basic utilities (e.g., TextEdit), it shocked me that there was this “hole” in the provided base apps. I need to emphasize, that I was not looking for a Photoshop equivalent, but merely needed something that would allow me to edit images quickly, typically before uploading them online.
Enter Paintbrush. Now I can quickly take a screenshot, use Paintbrush to circle/underline material for emphasis, resize, and save a file ready for rapid upload to my server. I can open, use, and be done with Paintbrush in the same time it takes Gimp or Photoshop to boot up.
For those that need quick edits for use in the fast-paced world of media like Twitter, you’re welcome. For future Colin who might have forgotten this software exists, shame on you.
One of my most visited posts is the discussion of using Dropbox to sync things across multiple computers and multiple platforms like Keepass. For some software, I also wrote that in many cases it is easier to create symbolic links to the original data structure rather than trying to convince the software to look in your Dropbox folder. Unfortunately, this requires a bit of terminal hacking, which, let’s be honest, some people just don’t want to mess with.
Never fear! Two pieces of software– MacDropAny for OS X and DropboxFolderSync for Windows– can link up any directory on your computer to your Dropbox account!
The dirty little secret is that both of these programs are just graphical interfaces which perform the command line hacks discussed previously. However, they can be a much-needed asset to the the not-terminally inclined or those prone to frequent, frequent typos.
Hattip, Lifehacker.
Dropbox is doing a special promotion called “Dropquest,” which is essentially a puzzle game created by some of the employees of the companies. It consists of ~25 clues and for each challenge you successfully complete you get a parcel of bonus space on their server– it totals 1 GB in the end. The challenge is rather difficult, so if you get stuck, feel free to Google “Dropquest hints” or something to that effect– there are loads of forum posts around the web that should help you move on.
If you don’t have Dropbox, you can sign up for free here. Dropbox is a web-based system that uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronization.
I use it for doing clever things like syncing my Keepass database, sharing presentation files after I give a seminar, and other miscellaneous tasks that require file use between my three computers and iPhone (and it allows me to access these files in a pinch through a web browser somewhere else), but other individuals also use it purely for off-site backup in the event something goes horribly, horribly wrong inside her laptop (since Dropbox syncs with the cloud it preserves a copy of your files on their servers– these files can be restored in the event of a hard drive failure).
New or existing Dropbox users can also increase their space here and here.
One feature that was notoriously absent from Windows until recently was the ability to create symbolic links. A symbolic link is merely a small piece of code that is put in some physical location (DIR1) which tells the operating system to move somewhere else (DIR2) when software attempts to access DIR1. I use this feature regularly in OS X or other Linux distributions, mainly as a way to sync files through Dropbox without having to messily move where my software stores my files, although I also like shortening the absolute path to various directories that look like they were named by a scientist having too much fun with alphabet magnets on the fridge.
In Unix speak, this is quite easy– open up a terminal window and type:
ln -s /PATHTO/DIR2/ /PATHTO/DIR1/
This has finally been added in Windows Vista and Windows 7, but remains somewhat sloppy and confusing. Here is a very brief reference for those trying to do a similar thing in Windows, with emphasis on the flags.
mklink \PATHTO\DIR1\file.txt \PATHTO\DIR2\file.txt
You will be returned with:
symbolic link created for \PATHTO\DIR1\file.txt <<===>> /PATHTO\DIR2\file.txt
This is the most basic entry for creating a symlink between files. The one issues? This creates a soft link (essentially the same as creating a shortcut in Windows Explorer). If I am doing something like syncing my Keepass database, I will actually break this symlink because the software will not be forwarded to the file on a basic level– it will merely sit in the folder and go “where the hell is my database?” and either create a blank one or give some other error message.
To solve this problem we need to use the /H flag which tells Windows to create a hard link. A hard link physically points to the secondary location. You’ll want to use this option if you are trying to trick an application into looking for a different directory. For me, most of the time.
mklink /H \PATHTO\DIR1\file.txt \PATHTO\DIR2\file.txt
Now that’s how to symlink files– you need additional flags for directories. /D tells Windows that you are creating directory links, not file links. If you only use /D you will create a soft link. /J instructs the OS to create a “junction” which is (functionally) the equivalent of the hard links discussed above. In most cases I find myself using /D and /J before the link and target.
mklink /D /J \PATHTO\DIR1\ \PATHTO\DIR2\
Also remember, if you type “mklnk” at the command prompt, you will be returned with basic instructions for using the functions described above:
C:\Users\balloflightning>mklink
MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target
/D Creates a directory symbolic link. Default is a file
symbolic link.
/H Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
/J Creates a Directory Junction.
Link specifies the new symbolic link name.
Target specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
refers to.
Hopefully the above helps demystify the procedure a bit, however.
I haven’t quite wrangled up the necessary funds to purchase an iPad yet– it seems that it’s not quite a niche that needs filling given I’m toting around an iPhone and a 13″ Macbook Pro wherever I go. However, one of the most discussed topics I see regarding the iPad is from novice Apple users who question as to whether or not it is worth paying for two cellular data plans; one for their iPhone, and one for their iPad.
There is a solution for some users if they are willing to take a few risks and modify the stock Apple OS. You can theoretically jailbreak your iPhone (if not already) and wirelessly tether the iPhone’s 3G connection so you can use surf on the iPad through the phone.
MiWi is an app (downloaded through Cydia for a one-time $20 fee, they also offer a free 3-day trial) that can setup your iPhone as a network access point (it will create a new “wireless device” that is available when you are using an iPad, laptop, etc.). Here’s a Wired article detailing the functionality of this “hack” (ironically the first thing that popped up on Google when I was trying to get to the MiWi home site). Now when you surf on your iPad, it routes the data transfer signal through your iPhone. Speed does not appear to be significantly degraded– you can easily still get up to 1 M/s download, so even streaming music or videos shouldn’t be a problem provided you have a strong connection to a tower (and you’re not in a location where 50,000 people might be trying to access that tower!)
If you go this route you just have to be careful about data transfer. MiWi keeps track of it for you, and you have a couple of options for visualizing it. Data transfer is key because new iPhone customers are likely on a tiered data pay structure– they have monthly transfer caps of either 200 MB ($15) or 2 GB ($25). I (and I assume many early iPhone adopters) am grandfathered in with an “unlimited” AT&T plan (which will eventually turn out to be like Comcast’s version of “unlimited” but for now you can’t beat it)– these individuals should be salivating at this post by now. Regardless of plan, you can obviously run up a few hundred megabytes very, very quickly browsing, so you might want to up your iPhone data transfer cap if you are at the bottom end their plans. However, this $10 bump would still be much cheaper than buying a whole new data plan for the iPad.
My Macbook (late 2008 Unibody) turned two years old a few days before Christmas. The day after it’s birthday (the only reason I know this is because I was checking where it fell in terms of warranty, but AppleCare is only one year, not two from purchase date so this was pretty irrelevant anyways) I started to suffer from a myriad of issues during use. Beachballing. Bouncing programs in the dock. Random freezes in Firefox when browsing. Connection dropouts. The works. I initially thought this was the work of an outdated program failing to play nice with the newest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.5) which I had installed days before. I began turning off plugins in Firefox and ditching programs from the startup menu to attempt to cure whatever sickness had taken over my laptop. Every reboot cycle gave me the same problem– the computer would run for about 30 seconds, but then any use and it started beachballing. Finally, it just didn’t reboot. The computer hung at the grey screen with the Apple logo and the spinning ball.
No peripherals (external hard drive, USB mouse, etc.) were attached so that was immediately ruled out. To attempt to diagnose the problem, I attempted to boot into safe mode. Not happening. Tried resetting the PRAM and NVRAM. Nada. Finally, the next series of steps allowed me to salvage my hard drive and let my Macbook live to see another day (minus a $700 data recovery charge).
Boot into single-user mode (sometimes called verbose mode) (hold down Control-V as soon as the Mac chime sounds after pressing the power button). You should now be in an environment that looks like this:
At the command line type:
/sbin/fsck -fy
and press Return.
You will receive messages about the disks use and fragmentation as fsck will now go through five phases of disk utility. If you get:
disk0s3: I/O Error
then you have a problem with bad sectors on the hard drive.
Eventually, fsck will probably tell you:
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Repeat the fsck process above.
Keep repeating the above process until
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
does not appear.
Even after this message disappears, repeat one more time. If this message doesn’t disappear, and you continue to get disk0s3: I/O Error or similar errors, it might be time to think about punting the hard drive (or visiting a data recovery specialist if you don’t have a backup).
Type reboot at the prompt.
You should be able to boot (hopefully). If you can, find an empty external hard drive. If it’s big enough (more than 2x the size of your internal drive, which most on the market nowadays should be), I highly recommend doing three things (you can partition it into 2 OS X Journaled drives for total safety, although this should work.
1.) (optional) Run Onyx maintenance scripts
2.) Clone the internal hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner.
3.) Do a brand-new, full backup using Time Machine.
This may seem redundant (backing up your now-functioning hard drive at it’s present state twice), but there have been sporadic issues reported in the past with Time Machine backups having issues backing up drives with I/O errors. Secondly, CCC will provide you with a bootable copy of your hard drive. Why is this important? Well, if you had I/O errors during this ordeal, it’s extremely likely that your hard drive is on the way out. You may have salvaged it for now, but with 2.5″ HDD prices being under $100 these days (even their SSD cousins are coming down) you might as well drop the coin and upgrade the hard drive.
Hard drives for Macbooks are simple to replace (iFixit will walk you through the steps). You can then either restore your Macbook via Time Machine and the OS X install disk, or, more preferably, boot onto your external partition (hold down Option right after the Mac chime sounds during bootup, select external hard drive) and then clone that partition over to your newly installed hard drive using CCC (essentially the same but reverse as you did before).
Season 7, Episode 7, Aired November 18th, 2010.
The song during the closing credits was by The Black Ryder entitled All That We See (Amazon) (YouTube). It’s from the album “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride.”
There is virtually no chance of this system coming within a couple hundred miles of any landmass outside of Bermuda, but Danielle is getting ready to go on a romp in the central Atlantic. Really has developed rapidly today, with [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_technique"]Dvorak[/url] estimates at 4.0 from the TAFB and 4.3 from CIMMS ADT (U of Wisconsin algorithm) as of late this afternoon.
The former image is just the visible satellite from 1945Z, the later is a microwave pass at 85 GHz (1620Z) which shows that there is a nice eyewall developing under the CDO. Should pop out overnight tonight as it clears out the core, and, combined with decent SST’s and a (fairly) low shear environment, there’s a real chance this might be a major hurricane (115+ mph MSW) before tomorrow is done. SHIPS seems to agree with big percentages for RI (54% for 25 kt, 34% for 40 kt).