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Wednesday, September 4, 2002 |
Tips for booting into single-user mode
Troubleshooting with single-user mode. On any Mac OS X box, you can enter "single-user mode" by holding down command-S at startup. This gives you a root prompt and a read-only hard drive, from which you can commence your life of quiet desperation, er, troubleshooting. [dive into mark]
9:57:43 PM 
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Shareware developer fixes SCSI issue
MNJ reader and frequent commenter Andy Smith sent this interesting email tonight:
"For those of us with Adaptec scsi cards not working with our scanners after 10.2, Hamrick Software's new VueScan version has created a completely invisible workaround. VueScan now works with my (Umax) scsi scanner, after previously being halted by Jaguar.
Interesting note...
I called Adaptec, seeing how they manufactured the card that I purchased this Spring. The support person I talked with rather rudely informed me that Apple broke it, and it was Apple's problem, not theirs. They would offer no other help.
So, I call Apple. The tech, while polite and wishing to help, couldn't. After he placed me on hold, he said he checked the Apple discussion boards, and admitted others were having the problem. Knowing no solution, he had me try several things that really didn't make sense. I ended up with a computer that would not start up, even after repair attempts in single user mode, Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, and Drive 10. I needed to reinstall 10.2.
Umax, of course, hasn't even attempted to really address OS X at all.
So... The three companies that I feel had some obligation to support me, did not. Who did?
A shareware developer who had no obligation to fix problems others had created. But he did. Ed Hamrick's support has been excellent, always returning emails promptly. I'm impressed. Yeah, I seem to be gushing, but I think his support deserves it."
8:23:53 PM
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Donations support Mac Net Journal
Just a quick word of thanks to MNJ reader Brian Caldwell for his donation this morning. Donations support the continuing operation of MNJ. To donate, click the PayPal link on any page, or contact me by email for details about how to send a check to support MNJ if you don't want to bother with a credit card. Thanks!
7:44:03 PM
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Today's notable software updates
These items are noted from Macupdate:
- WeatherPop Advance X 1.5 - Shareware version of the program that shows the current weather and forecast in your menubar.
- WeatherPop X 1.5 - Freeware version of the app that shows current weather info in your menubar.
- TinkerTool X 2.3.1 - This freeware offers access to more system customization to make Mac OS X look the way you want it to. The new version still doesn't restore the ability to do many things under Jaguar. I am waiting for the ability to change the default image format of a screen capture back to JPEG...
- netTunes X 1.1(583) - Control iTunes from another Mac on your network with this shareware.
- SimpleKeys X 1.0.3 - Shareware for assigning things to your keyboard function keys.
- VueScan 7.5.45 - Shareware scanner driver for many scanners under OS X.
5:16:25 PM
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Car companies declare electric vehicles dead
Want to know one reason I hate cars? If you care about the environment, read this story from Salon and see if you ever want to own another GM, or Ford for that matter:
Steal this car!. General Motors wants to take its pioneering electric automobiles off the road. But the geeks who drive them won't let go of the steering wheel. [Salon.com]
This may be off the topic of Macs and OS X, but it is something that people need to hear and remember the next time they or their kids are asked to go to war to defend the import of foreign oil. The auto companies lie. Big surprise. And while Ford and GM are more than willing to sell you a gas sucking SUV, try to buy an environmentally friendly and breaking edge product and they are likely to pull the plug.
4:54:56 PM
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Chimera matures to version 0.5
MacNN notes something that I noticed earlier this afternoon: Chimera hits 0.5 in nightly builds. From what I can see in this new version, there are no major changes - no new preference panels or anything obvious like that. I will have to check the Chimera mailing list archives to see what changes are rolled into this build.
Meanwhile, I should admit that I am using Chimera as my main browser under Jaguar now...
4:46:04 PM
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Now we're talking: Automating Audioblogging
AppleScript: Automating Audioblogging. - by Jesse Shanks. "In creating this Audioblogging script, an amazing number of different technologies and applications are employed. AppleScript, Speech, The Finder, iTunes, Quicktime, Internet Explorer, Javascript, HTML, PHP, Apache and MySQL all work together in the harmony of OS X bliss. The parts included here could be re-used for many purposes including building an online web reference, a diary, a bookmark repository and many more." [AppleScript Info]
3:17:10 PM
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Apple updates Airport network design guide
Apple updates its AirPort design guide: The new version covers building out AirPort networks using the 2.0 Base Station and OS X 10.2, which restored the software base station option available in OS 9. [80211b News]
2:28:45 PM
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Wondering about Wi-Fi security
Listening to NPR this morning, there are two stories that meld to make me wonder something about the security of Wi-Fi networks, which are notabily insecure even with encryption turned on. The first story is about a couple of geeks who drive around each weekend wardriving for insecure Wi-Fi networks, racking up 400 access points in one weekend. But the next is about data mining and the difficulty that data analysts have gathering specific data of interest from the mass of data on a given machine. This makes me wonder if one of the best things I can do as a Wi-Fi user is to have a lot of data going across my Wi-Fi pipe at any one time, making it infinitely harder for anyone sniffing my traffic to try and weed out the data they would like from the noise? This may not be bandwidth friendly, but by listening to KUOW FM on my laptop over a Wi-Fi connection I may be making my data stream more secure than it would be if the only traffic going through the airwaves was critical data...
9:02:04 AM
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Grading Jaguar
After 10 days or so of using Jaguar non-stop, I think I can offer a little insight into my impressions of how the operating system upgrade works in the real world on an older PowerBook system: Grading Jaguar.
8:45:46 AM
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A Q&A interview with Steve Wozniak
Macworld reprints the transcript of a chat with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on its site. It is interesting at the end of the interview that, as of this past spring when the interview took place, Woz was using Max OS 9.2.2 on his PowerBook rather than OS X. From his recent comments on a PowerBook-related mailing list I am on, I think he is using Mac OS X more now...
7:36:54 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.
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