Curioso!

I got fed up with Time Machine not backing up my iPhoto library. If I keep iPhoto running, it does not back up at all; if I quit iPhoto, it still will not make a full backup because I have a screen saver running with the Last Month smart folder, and this apparently locks out the last month of photos from being backed up. Also Time Machine will not back up from remote file systems.

So I looked around for a backup solution based on rsync. These solutions are around:

• A detailed walkthrough on creating backups using rsync UNIX
• HOWTO: Backup Your Mac With rsync
• Time Machine For Tiger

I mixed these together in my own script that can be called daily from crontab. It cycles through 7 daily backups and 8 weekly backups. Here is the script.

The Creative Zen mediaplayer is not directly supported on the Mac. I use the following software to transfer media to it:

• XNJB is a program to transfer files from and to the Zen.
• Visual Hub can convert video files to the AVI format that the Zen supports.
• Handbrake can convert DVDs to AVI.

Note: to access the SD memory card in the Zen you do not need any additional software. You must enable it as a removable drive on the Zen and then it will appear as an USB drive on the Mac when connected.

Quick Look is new functionality added in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopoard. It is activated by pressing the space bar in Finder.

• Folder.qlgenerator, quick look inside folders
• Archive.qlgenerator, quick look into zip, tar, rar archives.
• Source code syntax highlight

The qlgenerator files should be installed in the /Library/QuickLook folder. Finder should be relaunched after install.

I did an upgrade yesterday, and this did not go smoothly, Leopard bit me hard:
Read the rest of this entry »

VNC server for Mac:

• Enable built-in Apple VNC server
• Vine VNC server

VNC client for Mac:

• Chicken of the VNC
• JollysFastVNC

After upgrading to an Intel iMac, my HP Deskjet 840C started to produce garbled output. Fonts were too large and clipped at the bottom. Apparently the HP Deskjet 3.3 driver is broken on Intel computers. Solution is to download and install the HP Deskjet 2.7.1 driver. This is a PPC driver and will work via Rosetta, but output looks good.

New and old iMac side by side.

SONY DSC-H9 10/60 f/2.8 2900×1992 pixels 1335 kB

Development tools for Mac:

• Subversion plugin for Finder

Tools for working with images:

• Panorama Tools
• Hugin - graphical front-end for Panorama Tools
• ImageMagick

MacFuse provides everything you need to mount an ftp directory on a remote site on your Mac:

• Download and install MacFuse
• Download the Mac port of CurlFtpFs and put it in a directory in your search path
• Create directory ftp
• Execute command
  curlftpfs ftp://user:pass@ftp.example.com/ ftp

The mount point will become visible in the finder. Replace user/pass by your usercode/password and ftp.example.com by the name of your ftp site.

Update: See also MacFusion for a GUI to MacFuse.

Useful plugins for use with iPhoto:

• Keyword Assistant - easier management of keywords assigned to photos
• ScriptExport - export photos via shell script
• Tutorial to write your own plugin

Geocoding is the process of adding location information to the meta-data of photographs.
Read the rest of this entry »

Network File System

Client

• Remount NFS mounts on Mac:
  sudo kill -1 `cat /var/run/automount.pid`
• Mac OS X as an NFS Client
• In Leopard the above does not work anymore, netinfo has been replaced by Directory Utility.
• In Snow Leopard this functionality has moved to Disk Utility.

Server

• To map all access to a single uid/gid, put this line in /etc/exports:
  /x/d *(rw,all_squash,anonuid=101,anongid=100)

I could not find an easy way to move songs from one iTunes library to another. After some searching and trial and error, I settled on the following.
Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to distribute my mp3 collection over several drives, which is not well supported by iTunes. The article Switch between two iTunes Libraries describes an approach how to set this up, but this is a bit too complicated. Here is my approach.
Read the rest of this entry »

My EyeHome is connected to the Ethernet port of my Powerbook with Internet sharing enabled to the Airport. This provides access to the Internet, but not to other computers on my LAN. In order to reach my iMac, I added a reverse proxy to /etc/httpd /httpd.conf:

• Uncomment

  #LoadModule proxy_module       libexec/httpd/libproxy.so
  

  and

  #AddModule mod_proxy.c
  

• Add these lines

  Listen 8001
  <VirtualHost *:8001>
      ProxyPass / http://192.168.1.30:8000/
  </VirtualHost>
  

  where 192.168.1.30 is the IP address of my iMac

This forwards HTTP requests to port 8001 of my Powerbook to port 8000 of my iMac (where EyeHome is running).

It appears that instead of the EyeHome software on Mac, you can also run the Neuston Media Center software on Linux or Windows. Update: not really, apparently the EyeHome and the Neuston Media Center are distinguishable by the server.

The EyeHome is a TV settop box that provides access from a television set to EyeTV recordings, movies, pictures and music stored on a Mac. Information on the web is sparse, but I did find some useful links:

• EyeHome review
• EyeHome forum
• EyeHome Yahoo group

One of the USB disk drives on my Linksys NSLU2 suddenly stopped mounting and showed Unformatted on the Status screen. I have a Mac where I can plug in the USB drive, but MAX OSX Tiger does not support the existing ext3 file system driver, I cannot access the disk there. I did find out that the conf partition was broken, the data partition seemed OK. Read the rest of this entry »

My ISP, XS4ALL, had an offer for a free Treo 650 with monthly voice and GPRS plans via KPN Mobile. This Treo comes with Dial-Up Networking (DUN) enabled, so I should be able to use it to connect my Mac Powerbook to the internet via Bluetooth. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my Lacie firewire drives would not mount, and disk utility failed to repair it. I am running Mac OS X 1.2.8. Googling gives some pointers to commercial programs like Disk Warrier and Disk Rescue, but this thread gives a fast solution. Read the rest of this entry »