I've had this blog for the past 13 years in some form or another. Its
lived under a few different domains (crackmac.com, uphonic.com,
kevinduane.com) and it's fun to look back at some of the old and out of
date posts like the very first in 2003 on setting up an OSX server from scratch \<http://mostlycopyandpaste.com/2003/07/01/setting-up-a-os-x-system-from-scratch/\>__.
I haven't had much time the past 5 years since joining the Disney
Systems
Engineering
group and raising a young family but it's time to start some new
habits.
The latest Java
update
from Apple broke JMeter... not sure why but JMeter needs Java 1.5. Add
this line near the top of your jakarta-jmeter-2.X.X/bin/jmeter file
using your handy dandy text editor. I like
TextWrangler.
Finally a way to flush the DNS cache on Mac OS 10.5 "dscacheutil
-flushcache". PC users have always had a way to do this with "ipconfig
/flushdns" but Mac users usually had to restart. In Mac OS 10.4 there
was "lookupd -flushcache" but that never quite worked 100% of the
time. Here's a bit of the MAN page and a link to the complete page via
developer.apple.com.
dscacheutil -- gather information, statistics and initiate queries to
the Directory Service cache.
| Mac Automation: Quickly add to-dos/events to iCal- The Unofficial
Apple Weblog TUAW
| How many times have you been watching TV and wanted to quickly add a
to-do or event maybe both to iCal? In this Mac Automation post, Im
going to show you how to create both a to-do and an iCal event from
within Automator. You will be able to add new items to iCal without
ever having to open it. Lets begin.
| macosxhints.com - Customize the iDVD background Apple
Logo
| As you may know, iDVD includes (by default) the Apple logo watermark
on your DVD. You can disable this in the General section of iDVD's
preferences. In my case, however, I wanted the watermark, but I
didn't want it to be the Apple logo. Here's how to change it
(you'll need the Developer Tools installed to do this):
| 1. Quit iDVD if it's running, then make a backup of the iDVD.app
program.
| 2. Control-click on iDVD.app in the Finder, and choose Show Package
Contents from the pop-up menu.
| 3. Navigate into Contents/Resources.
| 4. Edit the file watermark.tif to your satisfaction, retaining the
pretty translucency.
| 5. Open Watermark.qtz by double-clicking on the file; it should open
in Quartz Composer.
| 6. Click on the patch that says Watermark.
| 7. Click on Patch Inspector in the Toolbar, then choose Settings.
| 8. Import the watermark.tif file you just edited.
| 9. Save the file and restart iDVD.
FlickrFan is a new kind of RSS reader for the
Macintosh. You subscribe to feeds of cool pictures and show them on
the screen of your laptop, desktop or best of all, a big screen high-def
TV in your den, office or living room!
What can FlickrFan do?
View photos from your Flickr account, selected contacts, tags and
high-res AP wire photos.
Pictures can be transferred to the Mac screen saver or viewed in the
browser.
Upload pictures you drop in a special folder.
Automatically back up all the pictures in your Flickr account on a
local disk.
Archive or delete old pictures, keeping the content of your screen
saver fresh.
| Chris Hanson - launchd: Better than sliced
bread
| Simply put, launchd is what makes it easy to get tasks launched
on-demand on Mac OS X 10.4 and later. It obviates lots of different
archaic Unix infrastructure — init.d, cron, inetd — in favor of a
single self-consistent and easy to use mechanism. Dave Zarzycki’s post
Where to begin? describes the
launchd design philosophy in some depth.
Processes launched at startup on Mac OS X are managed by launchd.
There’s no careful balancing of init.d or SystemStarter scripts on
modern releases of the operating system. Instead, launchd jobs have
property list entries in the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons directories
in the system and local domains. Some specify that launchd should keep
them alive indefinitely, others simply provide conditions under which
they should be launched.
| Mac Mojo : Get
converted
| This is a stand-alone Macintosh application that converts .docx
documents - that is, documents saved by Word 2007 for Windows in the
Office Open XML file format - into rich text format RTF documents so
that they can be automatically opened in either Word 2004 or Word v.X
for Mac OS X.
With this free converter we passionately want to get you up and reading
the new documents you are receiving. We do not, however, want to see you
inadvertently mess up any critical documents you are working with. For
that reason, only one-way read only conversion is supported in this
beta. When sending documents back to colleagues and contacts, we
recommend saving to the default .doc format from Mac Word listed as
"Word document" in the save dialog. Similarly, we continue to
recommend that you advise friends and colleagues who use Office 2007 and
collaborate regularly with Mac users to save their documents as a
"Word/Excel/PowerPoint 97-2003 Document" .doc, .xls, .ppt to ensure
that the files can be robustly shared across platforms while waiting for
final availability of Office 2008 for Mac.
| Beginners Guide: Programming Cocoa for OS X |
MacApper
| A few months back a friend asked me if I wanted to help work on a
small application for OS X. He figured because I had a long history of
Windows based programming I would have no trouble making the
transition to writing apps for Mac. Well he was wrong for obvious
reasons and I also found (unlike coding Windows apps) that the journey
to bring my skills up to par for Mac, was a greatly rewarding, yet
somewhat convoluted experience.
I had a dead, clicking hard drive. It would not mount so most repair
utilities and Apple Disk Utility couldn't see the drive to repair it.
Data Rescue II and DiskWarrior (even advanced recovery
mode)
would run for a while but eventually error out.
dd_rescue
(read third comment) is a linux utility that is very powerful and
persistent but wouldn't compile for me in Mac OS 10.4. I finally had
success with a similar linux tool
ddrescue and this
article.
The Mac OS X Server community tends to be an odd one in the larger IT
world. It isn't because of the relative scarcity of our OS, or the
strange hardware, it's because the sysadmins are often not sysadmins.
The people tasked with Mac OS X Server are often educators, video
editors, or bus drivers who have been pressed into service as the Mac OS
X Server sysadmin; often for no reason more than they were reading
MacAddict at lunch. Because of this sysadmin conscription I often find
that the people waging the good fight lack training in the practices of
IT administration. Furthermore they are often not required to conform to
the practices of the organization as a whole since they are running
"Those MAC servers..." and are excluded.
Reports indicate that someone has let loose a "Trojan horse" or worm
for Mac OS X users. The program is hidden within a package that
purportedly contains screenshots of Apple's as-yet unannounced next
major revision to Mac OS X. Whether it's a Trojan horse or worm seems
to vary depending on the source of the information. The code has also
elicited a response from Apple, and a warning to its customers.
At home we have a Windows 2003 Server running as a domain controller and
file server. Whilst this does its job pretty nicely for Windows clients,
I've never been able to connect to it successfully with my Mac running
OS X 10.3 Panther. Browsing the network I have always been able to see
the server, but any attempt to authenticate simply returned a error
along the lines of "the original item cannot be found". Frustrating.
A recent post reminded me of a trick I've been using for the past year
or so with great success, so I figured I'd share. Being a Mac
specialist, I find myself having to do OS installs on a pretty regular
basis. I carry around a couple of 2.5" FireWire hard drives loaded with
installers, diagnostics, and other goodies.
I wanted to be able to install the OS from one of my hard drives, like
in the old days of OS 9, instead of having to boot the the machine from
a CD or DVD. So here's what I did:
So I buy a video iPod, figuring it would be a cool toy. (Gotta get those
toys.) It arrives and I'm ready to give it a whirl. I pony up my two
bucks, download the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives, insert a
standard A/V-to-RCA cable into the earphone jack and try to play it back
on my TV.
Since 2002, over 3,000 attendees, have made the Southern California
MacFair the largest Mac Event in the Southwest! Exhibits for Macintosh
products and services, hands-on workshops and seminars on many topics
including; Photoshop CS2, Mac Tips and Tricks, Quickbooks for small
business and OS 10.4 server security.
read more | digg story \<http://digg.com/apple/Southern_California_Macfair_2005\>__
The app is small and nonintrusive, but hopefully still has all the
features a Mac user would want. With it you can:
| - view messages without opening a browser
| - open Gmail in your browser without forcing you to log in again
| - make Gmail your default email program
| - even more...
| Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET
News.com
| Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a
phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the
situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the
Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the
Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.
| Install Open-Xchange on OS X
Server
| An introduction and tutorial for the installation of a popular,
versatile open source Groupware program.
| This groupware gives the following function:
portal : the first user page showing last information
webmail : web access to internal messaging system
calendar : let you manage your personnal and pro calendar.
contacts : manage all your contact
tasks : let you manage task for a project and delegate it to a group
or a user
project : groups tasks together to show it as a project
documents and knowledge base : all you documents and elements you want
to share
| From engaget.com
| Yep, everyone's talking about using the Mac mini as a home media
center, and there's
a reason why: its diminutive form factor makes it a good candidate to
fit unobtrusively into an existing audio/video or home theater setup.
It looks more like a consumer electronics device than a computer, so
it won't look out of place in your living room.
If you work in network support for Windows, sooner or later it's bound
to happen. You'll be sitting quietly at your desk, and someone will
walk up with a long list of questions about their Apple Macintosh
computer. How do we connect it to the existing network? How will users
access file shares, print, browse the Internet, and use e-mail? What do
you do? You don't know anything about a Mac beyond plugging it into the
wall. In a perfect world, you could plug in any device and go to work.
Unfortunately, it's a little more involved than that. It isn't as hard
as it sounds, though, nor is it as difficult as it used to be. Just
remember that there is more than one way to peel an Apple!
Panther Maintenance
Tips
by FranÁois Joseph de Kermadec -- Yes, Mac OS X is incredibly stable,
but here's a comprehensive list of tips to keep it that way for the
duration of your OS install. What? You don't do any maintenance at all?
Well, read on. That might change.
I always thought it might be helpful to use the OS X installation CD not
only for the purpose of installing the OS, but to do some repairs which
can't be done when running from the hard disk. Fortunately, Apple has
made this very easy. The only thing you have to do is to add the
application(s) of your choice to the /Applications -> Utilities folder
of the installation CD/DVD. After that, boot from the copy of the DVD,
and in addition to the usual utilities, (for instance) the Terminal will
appear in the list of commands you can execute if you added it before. I
find that really useful, because if something goes wrong, the underlying
Unix commands are most times able to fix it.
| Apple debuts updated PowerBook line | MacNN
News
| Apple today introduced its new 15-inch PowerBook G4, offering a sleek
aluminum design weighing just 5.6 pounds, a 15.2-inch widescreen
display, speeds of up to 1.25GHz, a backlit keyboard, and advanced
connectivity including AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth, FireWire 800, USB
2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. The new 15-inch PowerBook G4 starts at
$1,999. Apple also updated its other PowerBooks: the new 17-inch
model features a faster 1.33 GHz G4 processor with double the amount
of on-chip level 2 cache and is now available for $2,999, a $300
price reduction. The new 12-inch model features a 1GHz G4 processor
and includes a Digital Video Interface (DVI) port.
| Mac OS X Panther is set to roar onto the scene later this year, and
itís something you donít want to miss. No matter how you use your Mac,
Panther makes better, sporting improvements from head to paws. Learn
more about the future today in this Sneak Preview, and stay tuned for
more news of the future.
| Link
|
| As a super-modern operating system, Mac OS X already combines the
power and stability of Unix with the simplicity and elegance of the
Macintosh. Its gorgeous user interface, Aqua, brings your desktop to
life with expressive icons, vibrant color and fluid motion.
Cutting-edge graphics technologies offer capabilities beyond anything
ever seen in a desktop operating system. At the foundation of Mac OS X
lies an industrial-strength, Unix-based core operating system, called
Darwin, that delivers unprecedented stability and performance. And
only with Mac OS X can you run Microsoft Office, Quark XPress and
Adobe Photoshop, browse a Windows network and use Unix commands ó at
the same time.