OS X

2.0 kind of day

October 23, 2006

Turns out that today's just a 2.0 kind of day. Skype 2.0 for the Macintosh was released today too. So it is downloading in the Firefox 2.0 window on the computer. Firefox 2.0 seems a little slower than it's predecessor though. Time will tell I guess.

Moving on

October 3, 2006

Mac Slash writes about evidence Apple is dropping G3 Server support and speculates on the possibility of Apple ending G3 client support. They wonder whether people left behind will possibly not buy Apple computers again.

Two responses come to mind. First there are Apple users who are still upset that the operating system isn't OS 9 anymore. Second, it is not like users stuck with only OS X 10.4.7 are in terrible shape... having a modern operating system on a computer that's nearly a decade old. Certainly some were purchased only 5 years ago, but in computer years 5 years is a darn good run.

End of an era

October 1, 2006

Last week there was an article in CIO Today about bad press for Microsoft as it appears Redmond is shutting out other security software vendors in favor of their internal software.

"Security software vendor Symantec claimed this week that Microsoft is withholding information about its new Vista operating system in an attempt to create an unfair advantage for its own security Relevant Products/Services from MessageLabs software," the article said.

The first few months of 2007 will be a tumultuous time in the tech world for sure. It seems Cupertino's Apple Computer is well suited to make leaps and bounds gains on its Redmond competition. Vista, which Microsoft now says will ship in January 2007, will ship years behind OS X which already has a far more complete feature set and the power of being UNIX-Based behind it. Long-time Windows will be faced with plenty of hardware that doesn't work and the need to upgrade.

When they go looking they'll find that the same company that makes their iPod has a great new operating system all their own with a lot of great features and the ability to keep running Windows XP or Windows Vista at the same time. The real question will be, can Apple keep up with the demand?

MAMP

September 30, 2006

One of the brilliant people I talked to this week turned me on to MAMP. The MAMP software makes it incredibly easy to experiment with different settings and have several test environments on a computer at once.

Upgrading MySQL on Mac OS X Server

August 16, 2006

It is pretty straight forward to migrate an OS X Server's native MySQL 4.1 to a MySQL binary installation of MySQL 5.0. After backing up the databases and /usr/bin install the new binary. Once that is done link /usr/bin/mysql files to /usr/local/mysql/bin.

Two changes are necessary to get everything working. First /etc/my.cnf needs to look at /var/mysql instead of /usr/local/mysql/var for databases. Second since Apple sticks the socket file in /tmp/mysql.sock (come on Apple what are you thinking?) a symbolic link is necessary to have it work properly. The link should point to /var/mysql/mysql.sock (unless you've modified the default config).

The last step is an updatecheck and permissions check.

Apple's laptops impressing Windows users

July 28, 2006

A recent AP article reviewed the new Apple laptop lineup with a focus on the impressive MacBook.
With extra software, the newer Macs can run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows as well as Apple's Mac OS X. This could spell trouble for notebook makers who can't offer the best of both worlds, particularly in light of the MacBook's starting price of $1,099.

This is something that other computer companies should take note of. Especially in light of the lackluster customer service. For example since March the university I work for has been trying to purchase UPS power supplies for our computers. Our sales person at Dell has been the most uncooperative possible. Whenever I ask who we can talk to at Dell about the string of commitments and broken promises I'm told to talk to the university. Not once has the sales person or anyone else at Dell acknowledged that their failure to be able to ship equipment when promised or that they need purchase orders faxed three or more times is a problem, not of the university's failing but of the business providing the service.

Software Update and DirecWay Error -1011

May 13, 2006

With consistent problems on my laptop doing software updates I went looking for the information I'd come across before about how to fix it. The method of fixing it is removing a bad cache file. During the search I came across this Apple Knowledge Base article. Rather annoyingly Apple's solution is to suggest calling Direcway for support. About as much help as trying to call a man in the middle of the desert for a glass of ice water.There is good to come from the search however annoying Apple's suggestion is. While I wasn't paying attention Apple released a Broadband Tuner last fall. It does the same thing as an earlier third-party script but makes browsing on a DirecWay connection much easier.

NEF, Photoshop and Nikon Scans

April 16, 2006

Almost two weeks ago I wrote about problems with Nikon NEF format scans and Photoshop CS2. The problem was that the scans wouldn't work in Photoshop or Apple's Preview etc.

Today I found the solution. Downloading and installing Nikon View 6.2.7 enables Photoshop CS2 to open and work with Nikon scanner raw (NEF) images. With Photoshop now able to work with the images it's a short trip to Adobe Bridge and an automatic workflow.

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