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.

• 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.

PictPress Thumbs offers the following functionality:

• An options pages where:
  • names for standard image sizes can be defined. Each size is either a proportional resize of an image or a resize and crop of an image. Predefined standard names are thumbnail for the WordPress thumbnail images and picture for the images WordPress shows on attachment pages.
  • a permalink structure for resized images can be defined.
  • names for captions that can be added to images.
  • names for styles to use for image display (like left aligned, right aligned, etc).
• A replacement for the browse tab in the upload section of the write page, where a choice can be made from the predefined standard sizes, captions, and styles for images that are inserted in the post.
• A cache directory separate from the images where copies of the resized images are stored.

Sizes can be specified as WxH for resizing and WxHcXxY for resizing and cropping. WxH means the image is made smaller to just fit in a rectangle of that size. WxHcXxY means the image is made smaller to just cover a rectangle of W+2*X by H+2*Y completely, then it is cropped to a rectangle of WxH.

The permalink structure by default is based on the permalink structure WordPress uses for attachments, which is %parent%/%attachment%, where %parent% is the permalink of the parent post of the attachment and %attachment% is the name of the attachment (derived from its title). For images we use as permalink %parent%/%attachment%/%size%.%ext%, where %size% is the name of one of the standard sizes and %ext% is the extension (e.g. jpg).

Captions can be defined in terms of attributes associated with an image, like title, description, date, etc.

PictPress will be split up in four relatively independent parts:

• Thumbs, a plugin for dynamically resizing images, maintaining a cache of resized images separate from the images themselves. It also changes the browse tab of the upload section of the write page to provide selection of several sizes and styles of images.
• AutoText, a plugin to automatically generate a table of content for attachments, posts, or pages.
• Subposts, a plugin to make a hierarchy of posts.
• PictPress itself, which now is just an automatic way of attaching a previously uploaded image or directory of images to a post. This will be done in a new tab added to the upload section of the write page.

This offers a much better integration with the WordPress attachment functionality.

Thumbs and Subposts are well along the way, Pictpress will follow soon.

• 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.

Table of contents

1. Overview of Cryptography
2. Mathematical Background
3. Number-Theoretic Reference Problems
4. Public-Key Parameters
5. Pseudorandom Bits and Sequences
6. Stream Ciphers
7. Block Ciphers
8. Public-Key Encryption
9. Hash Functions and Data Integrity
10. Identification and Entity Authentication
11. Digital Signatures
12. Key Establishment Protocols
13. Key Management Techniques
14. Efficient Implementation
15. Patents and Standards

If there are still vulnerabilities in the newer versions, please let me know.

1. After the upgrade, the login screen showed all my users, but it refused my password. This issue is described on Apple Support: Unable to log in to account after an upgrade install. Repairing it requires booting to single user mode (press cmd-S during boot) and then enter this non-trvial sequence of commands:

   mount -uw /
   launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
   dscl . -delete /Users/curioso AuthenticationAuthority
   passwd curioso
   

   and type in twice the password that you already had.

2. After the upgrade the user interface freezes of my new iMac 24 inch got very bad. I had one or two freezes before the upgrade, which was not too bad. But now the freeze seemed to happen anytime I went to the dock to unhide it. I set the dock to not hide automatically, which seems to help.
   Update: dock hiding probably has nothing to do with it. I booted in safe mode, and this disables the ATI graphics card device driver.
3. Quartz Composer does not seem to recognize my video card, so most screen savers do not work. Still struggling with this one.
   Update: this is because I booted in safe mode, and then the graphics driver is disabled.

Update (3-nov-2007): I applied the iMac 1.3 update, but the freezes persist. The problem is clearly related to the ATI Radeon HD 2600 GPU that is used in the iMac.

Update (15-nov-2007): Freezes were fixed by the Apple iMac graphics firmware update 1.0.

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

VNC client for Mac:

• Chicken of the VNC
• JollysFastVNC