Red beret dusted off ...

Post #302,472 by Ashton 1/16/09 5:37:50 AM Reply	Red beret dusted off ... Cadged Apple iMac 2.66 ghz Core2 4GB/320GB/Warranty May '09 off'n the Bay. (Expected a dry-run, with my miserly offer, even leaving the plot open-to-snipers for a Whole Minute. But who doesn't like Surprises, eh? What. Have. I. Done. !?! Will Apple crash before May, if Steve is hors de combat? (Will the Econ collapse before May, even if he doesn't?) What about comments on how Hot this sucker's back-panel is said to get (?) -- but then there are all those ga-ga respondents to 'write your own review' -- filled with purple prose I usually reserved for my first 15-yo Instructress in the arts of advanced osculation. How will I get my e-mail off the Seamonkey mail ap into Applespeak? (Via Thunderbird, I suppose..) Is Foxmarks any good for bookmark shuffling; can you name several optional lists (maybe even save one.. big enough to crash its older host: Seamonkey?) Safari...? Known issues w/ Apple version of FireFox? How large a screen would 256MB video RAM drive --> to max res./ millionish-colors? ..a 24"? Hmmm.. Can Airport lock-on to neighbor's WiFi-via-cable ... 70 or 80 metres? Any amplifier/boosters out there? Maybe I can skip overpriced basic-cable, after all; putting this jewel on dial-up would be lamer than training wheels on a Black Shadow :-/ Yeah, Read. Stuff. before bugging troops on trivia. Now I have to move The Missing Manual onto the top the john reading-stack.. and find out more than I wanted to know about YAN OS {sob} Isn't there a pill I could take? yet? (Replace CP/M et seq neural rete with OS X equivalencies: Effortlessly \| The Murican Way.) While exploring: Do Not type, rm -r hda0 <CR>; to see if it really works. (I Have that one down.) Must keep mantra going.. CL is fun; CL is fun. And there are NO {few..} Are You Sure?s in adult-nix. But I did issue that Ultimate command to Puppy Linux.. 'twas on a CD. {chortle} Error: Hey asshole; it's not a CD/RW ... you cooin with my bird?* (At least I can use my wireless Logi Marble Trackman, stead o' that mousey thing: that worked even on the G-3 thingie. Another nicety that aided the final tipover.) Cheers, fellow effete innalechshul e-lites. I. Hope.
Post #302,474 by boxley 1/16/09 7:29:29 AM Reply	just download seamonkey for mac what manual, you got a manual? I prefer firefox, you millage may vary screen? gotta play with that, my tired eyes cant do much above 768*1024 or some such since you should create a user account and leave root for the rm -rf / commands and also change login so it doesnt automatically login at startup. have fun thanx, bill
Post #302,512 by Ashton 1/16/09 4:56:37 PM Reply	Duh.. didn't think about nix version of that., too. Might work -- unless that version also objects to ~ 3MB bookmark files. Is it a Beastware thing or is it Memorex? The Missing Manual* -- series by O'Reilly. For those of us who used to buy the massive Que tomes, before we realized that the Beast would never get it Right, but they'd be bloody sure to rearrange all the menus periodically, to keep all those Campus drone-recruits happy. And Que rich with the next release. Mine was a present. Alas, my copy is for Tiger; dunno how much Leopard stuff will need serious explanation -- I might try reading the Help files, even if that's UnMurican. Hmm, given early Leopard complaints, wonder if I can downgrade for this model. (Neighbor has a sl. earlier iMac, doesn't plan to dump Tiger.. clever lass.) Now if could just erase all that dross, starting from from pip B:=A:. Peripheral Interchange Program; techie inharmonious illiteracy continues ...
Post #302,481 by drook 1/16/09 9:00:23 AM Reply	Use Google bookmarks I've got all my bookmarks in one place. Accessible from every computer I use. And as long as I can install the toolbar, they're right up there where they should be. -- Drew
Post #302,507 by Ashton 1/16/09 3:51:17 PM Reply	Re: Use Google bookmarks Thanks. Ah.. this sounds more universal than the FFox Foxmarks plug-in (which I have installed, but not yet used.) Any idea of the size of your bookmark file(s?), thereon stored. Does Google specify a limit OR: say how many different (-named) files can be toggled among? My problem is a couple older files which are just-at the limit where merely loading bookmarks will crash Seamonkey, not load on FFox when I direct via about:config --> locale of one of these Seamonkey-generated files. My search for a proper editing solution of the big files failed; they're all "HTML" maybe.. BUT - believe there are embedded things which make any universal-editing results unuseable. Truncating a test file == fails to load. Maybe the Google filtering of some sort can accomplish the feat; if there are control characters involved, they must be aware of the format. [WAG] (I used these earlier 'bookmarks' merely as a dbase of eBay, other transactions; not intended usage, I know -- but worked fine til near-3MB reached.) Hand editing is not a sane option. I don't know yet: the limit on FFox bookmark size, nor if Apple (same as generic *nix release?) FFox will be a 2.x or 3.x base. PITA Nothing is {ever} Simple, except in ads.
Post #302,509 by Another Scott 1/16/09 4:21:16 PM Reply	There's a FF to Safari conversion solution. I don't know if it'll work for you, but I hope it's not a waste of time. :-) http://www.whimspluc...d_Back_Again.html Even if the conversion works, I think you're really asking for trouble in having such a huge bookmark file, though. If I were you, I'd export it to HTML (in FF or Mozilla or whatever you're presently using) and then work on organizing into a stand-alone web page, and then use it as your Home page. That way, you can use it with any browser you like and don't have to worry about synchronizing huge bookmark files between different browsers, OSes, machines, etc., etc. The FireBug HTML editor extension might be worth looking at: http://getfirebug.com/ I haven't tried it myself. (I have Namo WebEditor ($$) for complicated HTML, and edit simple things with just a text editor.) Note though that there's a character out there that has you beat, with a 10 MB bookmark file! http://forums.mozill...=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a :-) Good luck! Cheers, Scott.
Post #302,515 by Ashton 1/16/09 5:15:51 PM Reply	Gracias - promising. Many thanks for the research and, as usual - interesting possibilities. Will check out the 'Convert' page anon; also editor. Loved the 10 MB epistle ... he, too found it not at all intuitively obvious how to split the file {successfully..} Ah well.. if indeed the WiFi next door works as my surrogate Hi-speed, I can play with these, without needing a calendar for transfer-times. Now waiting for UPS from Pennsylvania / but at least the shipping is free. (Seller mentioned: his first free-ship 'and it had to be cross-country'; Big $ it seems: when you let UPS Store pack things for you. I prefer physics; worked for me 100%.) Thanks again for al-punte directions! A.
Post #302,526 by drook 1/16/09 11:35:18 PM Reply	Just exported to check, mine's only 206k How do you have 3M? I could find things faster with a regular Google search than trying to find it in that many bookmarks. -- Drew
Post #302,527 by boxley 1/17/09 12:10:02 AM Reply	you dont remember his old tecra? linked to every piece of porn ever made circa a buncha years ago? back when they had hair dude :-)
Post #302,556 by Ashton 1/17/09 5:33:06 PM Reply	It's not about the links -- It's about notes I made re certain of the items -- all saved as part of a 'bookmark'. Most-all eBay links would be long-ago deceased, of course. Didn't wnat to become a DBA, just for these trivial notations. Computational-Lazy.. you know?
Post #302,560 by folkert 1/17/09 7:21:02 PM Reply	You forget, bookmarks is a file. Its called: bookmarks.html You realize it is straight HTML. Have you ever looked at it? If so, you'd realize everything you were worried about was nothing to worry about... as long as the company involved was NOT Microsoft.
Post #302,561 by Ashton 1/17/09 7:38:46 PM Reply	Yes, have / knew that. Yet.. truncating this alleged-HTML-only (?) file, while producing a smaller file: does not produce -- when saved -- a file which can be loaded as a 'bookmark.html' file: to SeaMonkey et al. so far.. Of ocurse I may have missed something, like maybe first installing the small, default-bookmark file, then ... Importing, rather than just renaming above test files. (Not sure whether I tried enough permutations of that.)
Post #302,563 by folkert 1/17/09 8:57:03 PM Reply	If you screw with it... it HAS to be valid HTML And there is specific "titles" that Netscape/FireFox/Mozilla recognizes. If I were you I'd use an easy to use HTML editor to get things right.
Post #302,536 by pwhysall 1/17/09 11:14:36 AM Reply	Re: Red beret dusted off ... Going through in order: Safari's fine, unless there's a particular Firefox plugin you need or you're mentally chained to Firefox. Safari can import Firefox bookmarks. Mail is better than Thunderbird with respect to search and backup; Thunderbird stuffs your shee into one big file, whereas Mail has one file per message. Mail can import your Thunderbird mailbox. I tend towards native Cocoa applications because they reap the benefits of things like text services (all Cocoa text entry boxes have on-the-fly spelling and grammar checking, for example) and because they just look nicer. Thunderbird's erratic treatment of IMAP is also annoying; it doesn't seem to check for messages anywhere other than the inbox, which is quite frankly pants. That's underpants, not trousers. PANTS, I SAY! I have a 24" iMac with a 256MB nVidia 7600GT; this quite happily runs at 1920x1200 in millions of colours. Airport is wifi. It'll work or it won't just like any other wifi adapter. 70 metres is wildly optimistic, unless you have nothing other than air between the laptop and the AP. Have a go with Safari, and install the Inquisitor add-on. Consider using Privoxy for ad-blocking (better, in my experience, than ABP on Firefox). If you've got a stiffy for Gecko, consider Camino. It's a Gecko browser that has a proper Cocoa interface, unlike Firefox (which just fakes its Cocoa interface elements). There are other browsers, like OmniWeb and Opera, but they add little to the browsing experience other than unfamiliar interfaces. Picasa for OS X is cack; I'm pretty sure the same will be true of Chrome (and, let's face it, no web browser written by Google is going to have anything resembling a decent ad blocking solution). Google's applications for OS X aren't great, in the main. Google Earth is pretty good though. I wouldn't bother installing Adobe Reader unless you have a PDF that's unmanageable in Preview. You might want to investigate Adium for multi-protocol IM, GPG Keychain Access for managing any GPG bits you've got and Steermouse for controlling extra mouse buttons.
Post #302,538 by folkert 1/17/09 11:38:07 AM Reply	Good advice all round.
Post #302,539 by pwhysall 1/17/09 12:25:28 PM Reply	Another thing. OS X has a decent port of Celestia, for your interstellar meanderings.
Post #303,142 by Ashton 1/27/09 4:19:01 PM Reply	Missed Steermouse on first pass ... on list; thanks again. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -- H.L. Mencken
Post #302,550 by a6l6e6x 1/17/09 4:03:54 PM Reply	Welcome to the fold! :) Airport disparagement to the contrary, my MacPro picks up wifi points that my wife's HP laptop doesn't know exist. I've been using Safari and Mail with no ill effects. There are times I'm tempted to get Firefox. Alex
Post #302,551 by Ashton 1/17/09 5:10:25 PM Reply	Re: Welcome to the fold! :) Thanks.. what I'd like to find is some sort of amplifier + suitably small (Ghz) Yagi via which neighbor can beam in my direction; meanwhile will use her n/book for a signal-strength meter, etc. 'Course amplification is two-way; would mean, also -- a suitable coupling from Airport's (no-connector, though) built-in antenna for t'other direction. I can't be alone in needing a small extra spot of Gain. Apparently too, with her add-on firewall ap, neighbor can transceive only to selected MAC-addresses; all others --> dev er, null. The game's afoot.
Post #302,557 by Another Scott 1/17/09 5:38:51 PM Reply	Lots of solutions for extending 802.11 E.g. a Yagi from B&B - http://www.bb-elec.c...l=3&TrailType=Top - $125 for 12.5 dB of gain at 2.4 GHz (though the datasheet says 15 dB of gain). Cringely (at his old PBS haunts) talked about getting wireless service in the boonies and building his own pair of Yagis for about $100. - http://www.pbs.org/c...20207_000721.html (Note that the links to the sources are on the Right now - the "Links of the Week" in the text is broken.) More is in his earlier article as well - http://www.pbs.org/c...10628_000421.html HTH! Have fun. Cheers, Scott.
Post #302,569 by Ashton 1/17/09 10:54:35 PM Reply	Ah yesss... recall his little experiment, way-back -- actually done a few miles from moi! --> Santa Rosa, line-of-sight. But he also had a parabolic antenna on his router. Was pondering the Pringles free-12 dB, then saw Alex's find, with 20 dB receive-gain - which just might be enough augmentation of the prolly <100 mW of the iMac. Knew this wouldn't be simple, but it might be fun; sure beats a lot of trenching or unsightly in-air cable run. Thanks again.
Post #302,555 by Ashton 1/17/09 5:16:38 PM Reply	Gracias, all. And thanks, Peter for immediately useful answers to Qs I'd have -- about 20 minutes after First-boot. My next Q was to be whether Apple mail be cack or crumpet. Nice it's not the former. Looks like I need to load Tbird, USB the appropriate folder, then simply ask A-mail to do its thing. (Neighbor also eschewed FFox {sniff,} preferring Safari in the end.) I'm on POP, but when I finally get a g-mail junk account, guess IMAP idiosyncrasies shall matter. Interesting too, that Preview can mange (most?) .pdfs sans the turgid wares of Adobe.. Love. It. Seller proved to be a chatty sort (I had merely appended, in comments box re. the paperwork, "First Apple..") This had been his own iMac, obv. bought in May -- among several nbs. Pondering springing for Apple Care, apparently Way-savvier treatment than the pathetic drill from hP, Dell [I KNOW about Dell! non-corporate] $/year is consistent with my Monte-Carlo analysis of the odds. OTOH.. it's well past infant-mortality failures, so my calculations may be as bogus as Cheney's. Oh well. L. has lent me many issues of a UK glossy-mag, MAC Format; anyone else peeped this? Its short-attention span style is a nice grey-cell relief from ... ingesting The Missing Manual. In both cases, the prose is expressed so much more sanely than the endless ongoing/random Beastware 'tips', accumulated mainly to keep last week's buffer overflow from asserting pwnership. Damn.. almost itching to do some CL dances, given just a few of the nix-Power hints, so attractively touted. Who wants to just be an 'operator' when ya can Play in the fields of the Lured. Hmmm - my 19" Sony 'Dell' can be Monitor #2 ... t/ball across Both! mondo Real Estate; this is almost obscenely excessive. Won't need 1920x1200 for the foreseeable, unless hooked on [No! NO!!] some fanciful video madness.. Looks to be a Bitchin package.. and I don't even Gots it yet. As {sob} the beloved Rumpole* would have said, Kalooo Kalay!! Alas, John Mortimer exited the Play yesterday :-/ RIP.
Post #302,562 by a6l6e6x 1/17/09 7:44:46 PM Reply	Get your neighbor one of these: http://www.radiolabs...ange-extender.php Not that I have checked it out or anything. Alex
Post #302,565 by Ashton 1/17/09 9:23:28 PM Reply	Nice.. Love the 20 dB receiver gain; just might obviate need to try coupling to the iMac antenna (wonder if it's just a printed-ckt spiral or rubber ducky. Ha! an excuse to pull the back off.) Nicer if it can be shielded, at least the back-180° attenuated without making bad reflections, VSWR mayhem. Have to examine her router, see if it's got one of the shown RF-connectors; jeez, then I have to grok routers.. Beats running RG-8/U (?) in-air or trenched, though. Thanks!
Post #303,126 by Ashton 1/27/09 6:42:34 AM Reply	Beret fitted en tete, at jaunty angle <;^-) Chatty seller didn't prevaricate ... lucky moi. Looks mint, appears to run minty in all exercised respects. Against the arrant dumbth of waiting so long ... is arrayed: it's faster, shinier and more-bitchin than in any days of yore. And silent as a tick {Steve's almost-no-fan obsession continues, I see.} And nope.. back panel never gets remotely toasty / more iggerant scuttlebutt I guess. Hi-Speed at neighbor's, a trial firewall called Net Barrier X5 [Rocketship XM] redux? (Teensy Apple modem also config. for interim.) Various Moz stuff d/l'd in a trice. More stuff set-up in a few leisurely intro hours VS the endless Beastware repatching of not-quite-fixed earlier bugs. Leopard purrs, though I dunno about the 3-D Longshoremen's Dock. Cute, though. Snow Leopard 10.6 alleged to be early, dedicated to slimming-down, skipping new toys -- good plan, I wot. And it all Just Works, manuals today superfluous. Even my Trackman mostly works, though see the need for a driver from Logitech/other? to give a choice of button assignments (the center scroll/button toggles up a zoomy calendar, clock, calc + SF Weather; vanishes in a trice.) Love. It. Undecided on sexy sleek kb VS sculpted Selectric-action of the earlier 17" comparo. Azathoth! ..... even the balloons are literate! VS Billyware channeling Shrub-speak. OK enough first-impression opiates. You've heard all this from every neophyte.. but tough. Decommissioning of the utterly-reliable / but stone-knife powered P-III shall be expedited.. poor thing. Into honored back-up retirement anon, it earns two ears, a tail and one Billy-ball. With epaulets. Why it's ..., full of Stars...!
Post #303,128 by Meerkat 1/27/09 6:50:50 AM Reply	I'll summon up my best creepy stare... while I intone (in monotone!) "Welcome to the order of the beret, my brother..."! :-) Anyway, glad it's doing all the right things - should it ever misbehave, we're all here ready to help sMac it back into submission... They said I was gullible ... and I believed them
Post #303,130 by Another Scott 1/27/09 7:34:42 AM Reply	Welcome! There are a lot of nice features about OS X that are worth exploring. Your middle mouse button is calling up the Dashboard. On our black MacBook, it's called up by a Function key (F5?). Apple (and others) has/have lots of "widgets" that can be added to the Dashboard - many for free. http://www.apple.com...nloads/dashboard/ http://www.apple.com...tus/istatpro.html is a marvelous system monitor and free. Have fun! Cheers, Scott.
Post #304,027 by Ashton 2/11/09 11:13:42 PM Reply	Wow! iStatPro - a center-button click away Why.. of course there is a fan! 3 in fact.. I Like that it monitors 8 items for °C! Or F or K!! I do Not like several temps near 50° C! in a fairly cool room (22°.) OK... at least it isn't 60! somewhere. And some people live at 50 -- like in Baghdad. If you only glance at it once a day ... tranquility. Summer? See a slow, quiet exhaust-slot 'helper' fan in my future. Just because I Can. Unclear, haven't delved yet -- if any temp info would be xmitted via USB/FWire HDs. Poco á poco. Bit that info is Out there. Thanks! d/l, install about as instant as imaginable. Gotta start finding logical Folders in which to stash stuff off the Download tower / clear off the desktop, et cetera. Lest they grow like Topsy. iMac -- more fun than a fortune cookie. Class! ... don't look in Redmond to find it.
Post #304,089 by Meerkat 2/13/09 9:20:19 AM Reply	Regarding fans... Not sure if this app works with iMacs, or just the laptops, but SMCFanControl is very handy for my Macbook Pro to save it from getting too warm. Well, to qualify that, 'too warm for my liking' - especially when using the laptop in the way its name suggests :) Regardless - google will find it, or: http://www.versiontr...info/macosx/31029 They said I was gullible ... and I believed them
Post #304,135 by Ashton 2/13/09 7:49:13 PM Reply	Great Minds. Thanks - the Perfect adjunct to iStat, which I wished-for, immediately ... and ... it Works. Was going to pass this on --> A Scott, for his tip on iStat (which I see I could not without Do.) Got new V2.1.3.1 at below source. """ While noting fan speeds, temp of the GPU diode: usually highest-of-all (and noting some reports from the field -- when some users found it beyond 70° [even 90!]) -- I came across a ref to This bitchin Util, which now resides in Menu Bar. http://www.macupdate...info.php/id/23049 Obviously of more import to all nb users, I find it quite comforting to be able to, at least apply the Obvious: 70+ °C is getting to too-Hot for longevity of expensive, mobo-unreplaceable mini-processors like this GPU chip. 90° C is beyond the pale, long-term. We gots fine monitoring, ergo Use It. """ Bumped DD, CPU fans a mere 100 rpm: no Sahara temps anywhere. Gonna send a couple $ --> PayPal (I like author's info too - he did not do any risky things like ... closed-loop: for reasons well-stated.) Now I want to find out, wtf is this 'diode' doing, where is it and why is it the hottest thingie? The usual. Again, thanks for this al-punte tip. While I'm not obsessive about checking stuff every hour because-it's-there, this is the sort which, once seen to operate as described -- deserves a glance, periodically. Before and especially after: warranty goes. Love this machine so-far; 'tis almost as much fun as the electron synchrotron (which was small enough to be run by One.. even just to demo to a friend on a weekend. As in, Wooo :-) Now {sob} it has left the Smithsonian.. (was an exhibit for a few years) to its {sniff} denouement in some gigundo warehouse, never again to see gawking visitors.. (hearing the audio tape I made of it's 6/sec thump-thump-thumps.)
Post #303,133 by folkert 1/27/09 10:43:14 AM Reply	Look in the system settings somewhere The choices for the buttons are there. No "driver" needed. Now perhaps a specification file (ppd of sorts) might be in order but that only tells OSX howto interpret the device... by far NOT a driver. My wife a has a similar logitech mouse, being wireless as well worked right out of the box without any additional drivers for it. The Scroll wheel, the 1st through 5th button all assignable to actions.
Post #303,135 by drook 1/27/09 11:40:02 AM Reply	Something tells me ... ... that you actually have a beret. And that you put it on before sitting down at the keyboard. -- Drew
Post #303,137 by boxley 1/27/09 12:14:45 PM Reply	dunno if it would fit over a forage cap
Post #303,141 by Ashton 1/27/09 3:59:25 PM Reply	Ya gots it.. I have a slide (unfortunately) of moi, astride a tricked-out Norton Dominator [!! -- heh; model name] at Teh Hallow'd Isle of Man -- with red beret + giant grin, astride a pukka race bike. This bloke {somehow?\|} detected that I be of Yank ancestry and ... in the spirit of the day: lent me his amateur racer, so I could briefly experience being on The Actual Road on which fearless superstars would next day -->\| decelerate from the ton, to make it around Ramsey Hairpin, where we were gathered -- a good spot to actually See the riders' visages, rather than a blur. (Road open for everyone, day before -- it is, of course a real Road on a beautiful island.) Sheer exhilaration, tempered by the caution: thou shalt Not drop This Plot! So, it's a Special beret. Jeez ... wtf is the ascii table? {sniff} no more ALT 0xxx :-/ But actually: I have misplaced this relic at the moment, so it's a Virtual-topper, y'know.. (Put away for safekeeping. Yeah.. Where?!) _______________________________________________________________________________ It's just a bloody machine, but it's got Cuth; display eats the 19" Trinitron's lunch. Almost want to watch an ad! Sheesh! - time to peep a DVD. Duh..
Post #303,155 by static 1/27/09 8:42:23 PM 1/27/09 8:43:09 PM Reply	One of these days, Ashton... ... you will have to post a pic! :-0 Or we have to organise an Ashton-bash* or some such. Wade. * by which I mean, of course, a big get-together at your place! :-D "Ah -- I take it the doorbell doesn't work?" Edited by static Jan. 27, 2009, 08:43:09 PM EST Expand All History
Post #303,201 by Ashton 1/28/09 5:23:30 PM Reply	Yeah, well.. will soon have a Place to store cute stuff -- Effortlessly.
Post #303,203 by Ashton 1/28/09 5:47:32 PM Reply	OK.. LAST Newbie post .... for a decent interval. Imagine.. a Obama W.H. full of new iMacs, replacing the ASR-33s of the previous (ones who just didn't Believe-in communicating Anything.) {sigh} [Optional: No technically Useful material advanced] Jeez ... ... The whole FEEL of this Sys is just so much more Adult! Have yet to encounter a single elemental-Stupidity! (but the evening is young.) The messages! (re exploratory random clickies) al punte (so far) and with the precisely-relevant point you would want to hear VS {shudder} the.. either too-verbose/too-terse, oft-incomplete, irrelevant BS of most every Billyware 'message' to the ~~User~~ User-patsy. Starting with the crystal-clear legible fonts and their yes, 'literate!' typography and page æsthetic - seemingly written for Readers, not (just) infinite-info-junkies. (Clued me in to ISP's name change (both In- and Out- had been same server) to: mail.xxx.com --> smtp.xxx.com (I knew about Port 587 replacing __). No stupid, "have you plugged-in the computer?") Popped a DVD in / no read-up on process; teensy Remote with a few exploratory clickies: and there was Anthony Hopkins astride his World's Fastest Indian at Bonneville; at proportional distance to Sony 24" Tee Vee: crisper/Better. QED (Damn, if I don't bring some old-fashioned scale&relativity to this seductive toy, may find self immersed in the Boolean of journalist-ing file systems, the optimizing of Searchlight and stuff like that. Oh! the inhumanity.) Almost forgot to call a sweetie, sweetie. Sorry.. but the Remarkable should be remarked-on. A little. While it's fresh. [/Technically useless] WANT: some s/ware widget to stay in a bar, indicate HD, DVD activity! Absence of LEDs; First demerit. (Can't bring self to drill holes in This 'case'.) WANT: ditto in bar: instant web-disconnect clickie: for when above induces a suspicion of The Unwanted. It's gotta be Out There. OK.. I'll go away :-) For a 'while'. ____________________________________________________________________ When Sane OSs are outlawed by Fatherland Security, only Terrierists will have Apples
Post #303,207 by folkert 1/28/09 6:18:16 PM Reply	You'll soon learn to... become one with the machine. Now that you no longer need to watch and wait for OSX to churn through massive amounts of disk IO just to open a program... or see the LED isn't flashing because the machine is locked up and wasn't churning. Access to the DVD? Who cares, is it mounted? the little icon tells you that that will eventually be enough... trust me. I find Disk IO indicators to be distracting. Soon you'll be annoyed by all those LEDs you used to have. You'll find they aren't needed. As far as the "Web Access" problems you seem to be envisioning... Are you on a DSL or Wireless or Cable connection? If so... just leave it on, more than likely you are behind a "firewall/router" anyway. Remember you are NOT on Windows anymore. Many of your pet tricks to get things the way you want are not needed or can even cause damage. Malicious stuff auto-executing isn't something that just happens on OSX. If you are on dial up... there is an indicator for that in any case. Start enjoying the Internet. Ignore those "FinallyFast.com" sites as they are only for Windows... stop tinkering and just enjoy. If you want to tinker, use Linux. If you want to be afraid use Windows.
Post #303,208 by static 1/28/09 6:23:45 PM Reply	ICLPRD If you want to tinker, use Linux. If you want to be afraid use Windows. "Ah -- I take it the doorbell doesn't work?"
Post #303,214 by Another Scott 1/28/09 10:18:00 PM 1/28/09 10:19:29 PM Reply	iStat Menus, MenuMeters, Internet Disconnect 2.1 I haven't tried them myself, but they may do what you're asking. I'm getting a PHP error on the first one, but here's Google's cache for it: http://74.125.47.132...&client=firefox-a http://www.ragingmen...meters/index.html http://www.macupdate...ternet-disconnect HTH a little. Cheers, Scott. Edited by Another Scott Jan. 28, 2009, 10:19:29 PM EST Expand All History
Post #303,224 by Ashton 1/29/09 4:37:14 AM 1/29/09 5:38:33 AM Reply	Nice sleuthing, once again - and look small enough for dial-up, even == mañana. Thanks. Under: research opportunity -- Have a copy of what seems to be closest to SpinRite for Mac, to try out: Drive Genius. Although it doesn't appear to have Gibson's statistical data recapture nor mention anything about refreshing base-format {two biggies, IMO} -- seems to have utils for handy partitioning, defrag and related [!! - journalled sys != auto-defrag, forever?? Pshaw.] Knew I'd have to scope some theoretical stuff, but so soon? ... Arggghhh. SpinR still needs to load its multi-tasking OS via DOS boot == bummer, still. So if I wanted a test of magn. domains, cylinder/head centering and the like, as any standard obsessive would: I'd have to wipe drive, Â format elsewhere in FAT-32 (more sophisiticated models in Spin6) -- then wipe, etc. etc. OK.. but not This year. iMac HD access needs disassembly; not for the fumble-fingered. I ain't that. Practical answer: given cheapness of drives, now -- sure ain't cost-effective any more :-/ (Correlation != causality; still, have SpinRited every HD since Spin1; not had a drive failure, though nothing here runs 24/7 either. Can I break the habit/charm with shiny-new iMac? Doubt it.) Fun.. so far :-) Kinda like calibrating a scope. Ah well, wanted to look inside anyway. (Turns out the seller is an EE/CompE -- small world.) Anti-static.. Anti-static.. Anti-static.. Ed: Â Wrong! - need only schlep the HD into a Doze box; no need to wipe/reload. Edited by Ashton Jan. 29, 2009, 05:38:33 AM EST Expand All History
Post #303,229 by folkert 1/29/09 6:43:43 AM Reply	You are applying broken ideals to... Ashton STOP WORRYING ABOUT WINDOWS PROBLEMS WITH YOUR MAC. The filesystem does DO it anywhere close to what Windows does. YOU DO NOT NEED A DISK OPTIMIZER. If want to fsck up you MAC with something that doesn't run ON OSX... be my guest and go somewhere else when it horks your system up. No, really and truly. OSX and its native filesystem does not work like Windows filesystems EVER. NTFS touted as never needing de-fragmentation obviously wasn't immune. FAT* of course was horrendous. OSX uses a vs well designed and thought out Alog for its filesystem. Its opportunistic. Its conservative. It doesn't fill the first hole found unless its a good fit. The ONLY time you see/get degradation is when you are nearly 100% full. And I mean nearly 100% full... as in 99.99% full, then its searching for all those holes. Then and only then does the fragmentation matter. One thing you need to get is a external Hard Drive for USB connection to use as a "Time Machine" drive. It will get everything. Yes everything. Related to you and other users on the machine. If the internal disk crashes... get replacement drive, reinstall the OS (with disk provided by Apple), reboot, install the updates (reboot if needed) and plug in the time machine drive, wait a few minutes... voila back in business. Stop worrying about Windows problems. OSX DOES NOT HAVE THEM. And the "partitioning" you speak of... what is this in OSX terms? And once again I say this (for general acceptance): If you want to get things done, use OSX. If you want to tinker with things (and possibly get things done), use Linux. If you want to be afraid, use Windows. I don't say them lightly. I don't say them in a glib manner. I'm dead serious. Just USE THE MAC. Its a self keeping machine and does it very well. Stop forcing "billyware" paradigms on it.
Post #303,230 by Another Scott 1/29/09 7:16:41 AM Reply	Sometimes one does need those tools. Yeah, defragmenting is probably something that doesn't need to be worried about. But as we know, drives on Macs do go bad. Drive Genius and is one of the few tools available that will work reasonably well with Mac volumes to recover files from a disk that is dying. An older article of some more of them is here: http://www.peachpit....cle.aspx?p=693649 Having an external backup is a good idea, but that's not failure-proof either. Having a tool that monitors SMART messages from hard drives is probably a good idea, as it can give advance indications that a drive is dying. I haven't looked for one of those yet, myself. http://www.apple.com...smartutility.html is one. There are some messages out there that indicate there may be something free in the POSIX tools that's part of OS X - I haven't looked carefully. And having a system monitor tool is very handy in some circumstances. E.g. Our old G4 Titanium Powerbook was throwing up the spinning beach ball quite often while browsing, for unknown reasons. iStat Pro made it clear that it was happening because it was running out of RAM and hitting the swap file too heavily. Since it only can take 1 GB of RAM, other than changing browsing habits, it was something that had to be accepted. But without iStat Pro, it wasn't possible to easily know what was going on. Yeah, futzing around with utilities can be counter-productive, but it's nice to know what exactly is happening and what can be done when things are going wrong. Ashton - a good resource that you should browse occasionally is Ric Ford's "Macintouch". Lots of user tips, pointers to cheap deals, notes about software updates and issues, etc. It's a great resource. http://www.macintouch.com My $0.02. :-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #303,279 by Ashton 1/29/09 10:12:32 PM Reply	Appreciations extended; here's one on Rixtools SMART (the occasional look-in) was on my long list, too. Thanks. Gotta love AI when it works. Got my SATA/IDE -->USB-2 dongle for ripping HDs, complete with tiny PS. Probably use a spare 2.5" in a firewire'd box for Time Machine I figure I might as well use what (little) i Know fershure and much of hearsay, at the outset -- before there's any data to protect much. So, why not go to the Root before the easy-practical, eh? Will explore macintouch, a couple others. Seller suggested macosxhints.com and there are a couple more; need to fit site to my 'level'. EX: Rick, of DOS Rixtools fame (samples of his tiny utils I've commented on, way-back) went all Apple-obsessed a couple years back; his brain still works: Rick has a suite of tools for OSX (wonder if done in assembly !?) at rixstep.com == these are for toilers in the programming salt-mines, mainly it seems -- but I haven't scoped enough to see, in this pricey suite: what/any I'd use or 'need'. Others here would evaluate differently. Rick appears to be pretty Ept. Now I need to find STOP (loading)in Safari; then start with the migration, get Moz stuff installed ... poco á poco. No hurries. Savor the discoveries, I say. They only happen once. Love the GUI sudo-in-a-box, but need a shorter PW {sigh} secure OR quick.. OSX-follows-liff. Went to copy a DVD.. talk aboutcher minimalism !! 0-'setup'. It just copies, puts image on desktop, burns, verifies and ... plays well in a Toshiba. Batting 1000. Handy too, having a sorta Mac-pro a couple hundred feet away; saves asking most of the sillier questions here. Day3 and it hasn't pissed me off yet! How NICE just to leave it sleeping - and Know the OS shall not self destruct. (Most failures in 'lectronics happen at turn-on/turn-off. Werd which you Know too.) Gracias, A.
Post #303,281 by folkert 1/29/09 10:44:12 PM Reply	Notice you are ignoring everyone else... that say to just enjoy the machine and use Time-Machine and forget about worrying.
Post #303,285 by Ashton 1/29/09 11:18:44 PM Reply	Not at all I responded to your fine summary. Not 'worried'. Simply, I'd prefer to plan for the unexpected (then.. follow advice, implicitly: fergeddaboudit.) Comments on the er, efficacy of Time machine (below) -- make that gnarliest of Problems just disappear! Still, takes a while to have That-much new-faith, y'know? After a few careers involving electrons and moving-things -- I just naturally anticipate gremlins aka MTBF, to keep it simple. I won't be 'testing things' to absurdity; already the sheer elegance of the integration of tasks + truly informative response boxes: confirm the competence that came inside the pretty box. So, aside from the 3-rule (original, nearby copy + one-more of the rilly Important data elsewhere, say) -- I'm on the path --> Beret'd Believerdom. (Hell, I turned neighbor onto the total-escape from Beastware.) Now she has 3 (why 2 nbs + iMac -?- dunno, maybe to get dual core.) But she'll never run \|\|s or that other Beast-option. Likely: nor I. Can still play with *nix installs on other boxes, best place to practice any involved CL-exercises, I wot. As-in: why didn't I sell some dope or nuke secrets and get one of these {sob} Before!? Then get one just as Murica punts / the whole world notes the ineffectivenes of Econ theorists, etc ?? But it's too much fun already.. to imagine any buyer's remorse. Got my 100-pack of Top Ramen, so Bring It On.
Post #303,250 by pwhysall 1/29/09 1:42:38 PM Reply	Instead of fussing about SpinRite or similar... ...cough up for an external disk and back up with Time Machine.
Post #303,262 by Steve Lowe 1/29/09 4:58:32 PM Reply	Arr Hard disk went south in my MacBook Pro a couple months ago. After Apple installed new drive under applecare, I plugged in my time machine drive, booted the machine with the Leopard disk in, and chose "restore from time machine backup". 20 minutes later it was as if nothing had ever happened. Time Machine is wonderful.
Post #303,282 by Ashton 1/29/09 10:45:35 PM Reply	Awe inspiring.. 'cause youse guys wouldn't make this up \| Wouldja?? -- Jeez -- who hasn't dreamed about such a thing actually Working glitch-free !?! Sounds about as seamless as, when FFox has its periodic msvcrt.dll crash in 9x: restore on next launch gets it back to, even -- an open Comments box With the text! But ever-so-much more. So, apparently the T.Machine ap pretty-much grabs All files created by anyone, drops same in right nooks, atop a clean install with all configs incl. aps! ... et, Viola! Hard to believe, when one contemplates the 'burn complete HD image' drill.. say every week? of the prudently paranoid Doze user. (And then - some file might have been Open, uncopied, yada.) I mean.. I've looked into the various alleged nostrums the Ex Pee folk try: hideous. So I guess I'm Free! ... Free at Last! Bet most Doze users WON'T believe this really happens. Me? d'overai ni proverai. Maybe rilly Important stuff --> DVD-as-floppy, too. Insurance: tis a whole Industry. BTW - is that aux HD spinning all the time? or managed by Mothership to spin-down too (when Mother is asleep, say -- or in other lengthy intervals when nothing is being 'saved-to-disk? Guess I need to read the whole TM poop.)
Post #303,283 by folkert 1/29/09 10:48:27 PM Reply	My drive if connected and case turned on... The HD shuts off after 5 minutes of inactivity. Time machine runs every hour if you leave the drive plugged in... and spins it up every hour if anything was done or worked on.
Post #303,284 by mvitale 1/29/09 11:07:03 PM Reply	Default TM preferences: Time Machine keeps: * Hourly backups for the past 24 hours * Daily backups for the past month * Weekly backups until your backup disk is full Yes, it really is as easy as buying a second disk and turning on Time Machine, Virginia. -Mike "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania

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