Category: Tech

Why on earth would anyone need a spyware program for a Macintosh?

This page is especially telling. As of the time of this post, it reads:

“Coming soon is a complete list of spyware for the Macintosh that MacScan detects.”

…with nothing else on the page.

Lately, all I’ve been posting about, it seems, is my cat and my running.

Now I want to post about something geeky.

At home, I have a desktop (a Mac mini) and a laptop (3+ year old G3 iBook). Most of the time I use my iBook, occasionally I’ll use the Mac mini if it’s something that requires a (tiny little) bit more horsepower; the difference in processor power and memory is slight but sometimes noticeable. (I know, I know, I should upgrade. Someday…) But mainly I use the Mac mini as a file server for my iBook. My music collection is on the mini, for example.

Lately, though, I’ve realized that I don’t have a backup strategy. I mean, my music collection is on both my mini and my iPod, so the chances that both drives would fail is small. But I don’t have anything else backed up. My Quicken data, going back years and years, exists in only one place. All of my personal writing – again, pretty much only in one place. Archived email, again, going back years… only in one place (not counting the stuff stored on my IMAP server, but that’s on a burly RAID system so I’m not too worried about it).

So I thought that a good partial solution would be to mirror the home directories of my mini and my iBook. I figured I could write a simple shell script that ran nightly and copied files back and forth depending on which files were new. That way, both machines would have copies of all my important files.

But… I’m a newbie when it comes to shell scripts. I goofed around writing pseudo-code but never got around to figuring out the actual scripting.

Then, poking around for examples, I found a program called unison. It’s essentially a mirroring tool – it does all the hard work of comparing files by date and differences and deciding which to keep. It will report if conflicts exist – for example, a file on both machines was modified in different ways. It’s like rsync in that it will only propagate the updates instead of the whole file and will use compression. It can be run either as a direct connection or tunneled over ssh.

So now, instead of writing a script, I can just invoke a simple command to mirror the specific directories I want. It’s perfect for my needs – simple mirroring over my local network. Although there are some other files I do want to make copies of (like my iTunes preference files and some other important preferences) so I’ll probably end up scripting the whole shebang anyway. But now the mirroring part is essentially done.

With the -path and -ignore switches, I can direct unison to only the directories I want, and leave alone the ones I don’t, like my ~/Music/iTunes/ directory. I’ve got over 20 GB of music and only have a 30 GB hard drive on my laptop. Like I said above, my iPod is my backup for my music.

And the best part is, unison was available as a package in Fink, the package manager I use. It’s in the “Unstable” group but that doesn’t worry me. So it was easy to install (almost a requirement for a Mac OS X program, even a command-line utility!).

I present to you, the Pirate Keyboard.

From the Encyclopedia Dramatica, which I stumbled onto today. Full of fascinating information.

Update 12 April 2022: Removed the original link to the Encyclopedia Dramatica, since it has become a place of evil.

Mighty Mouse review:

Well, I went down to the Pioneer Place Apple Store to check out the new Apple mouse on my lunch break, and ended up buying one. Here’s my thoughts.

The good parts are the fact that there are fewer moving parts, although it remains to be seen how the scroll ball holds up under heavy Cheeto useage. I like the shape and feel, although that’s a personal preference and not everyone will share it. It does all the basics that I expect of it.

The bad parts of the Mighty Mouse are that the driver for programming the buttons will only install in Tiger. And the very latest version of Tiger, at that. Bah. Apple had to do something stoopid. I’m not sure I’m ready to upgrade from Panther yet. Fortunately all the basic functionality is working under Panther – left- and right-click, scroll ball (up, down, left, right, and diagonal, sort of).

But there’s a third-party person working on getting all the functionality under earlier versions of Mac OS. Behold USB Overdrive. The developer, Alessandro Levi Montalcini, says that an update for the Mighty Mouse won’t be too long.

The touch-sensitivity is only used to distinguish between a right- or left-click. The whole shell of the mouse physically clicks down, so there is still physical feedback – and the sensors in the mouse can differentiate whether or not I’m putting pressure on the left or right side. The “speaker” inside is very faint, apparently — I can’t hear it unless I’m right up against the mouse (comes from playing my music too loud, I guess) and it only clicks for the side buttons and the scroll button.

The fact that a click takes the entire mouse body makes it difficult to click-and-drag long distances; if I have to pick up the mouse to reposition it, it loses the click. A bit frustrating, but it’s the same deal with the Apple Pro Mouse.

Oh, and the cord is a bit short for my setup at home; there’s not enough room on my keyboard tray for the mouse, too, so I had to use a USB extension cord to route the mouse cable up on top of my desk.

And, this is how broken I am: I was bummed because I was the second person in the Pioneer Place Apple Store to buy one. Dammit! If I hadn’t stopped to pick up a DLO Flip Clip for my Shuffle, I would have been first!

That sounds all bad, doesn’t it? I admit, it’s possible that the RDF is wearing off faster than normal. Bottom line; it’s a mouse. Scroll ball is nice. And I’d rather give my money to Apple than Microsoft — time to ditch my MS Intellimouse Exploder.

So, all you whiners out there that keep arguing that Apple is stupid for sticking with a one-button mouse…

First of all, multi-button mice have worked properly in Mac OS since at least OS 8, near as I can remember. Certainly they work fine in OS X. Just plug it in, and the OS recognizes the secondary mouse button as a “Ctrl-click”, blahdi-blahdi-blah, whatever.

But, second, and more imporantly, if Apple was going to make a multi-button mouse, it would be beautiful and cutting-edge.

Like, oh, say, the Mighty Mouse.

The front half of the mouse is touch-sensitive. It looks like a one-button mouse, but is used like a multi-button mouse. And instead of a scroll wheel, with just forward and back motion, it’s got a scroll ball for multi-direction scrolling.

It’s the coolio-est. I want one. Maybe two.

Oh, here’s the stoopid part (there’s always a stoopid part, even for Apple. BTW, my mentioning this counts as “balance” so lay off the “cult of Apple” comments): the Mighty Mouse requires the latest version of Mac OS X (v10.4.2 of Tiger) to customize all the buttons. Argh.

I’ve got these odd whitish spots on my laptop screen. They are irregular lighter-colored areas, one about the size of two nickles the other smaller than a dime. I can still see the image there, but it’s lighter-colored. It’s only distracting, not debilitating. Plus, my trusty iBook is long since out of warranty.

At any rate, I took it in to the Apple Store to ask them what it might be, and what it might cost to have Apple fix it. I was only asking for advice, since I figured it could be really spendy if it was the screen itself. What they said is that there’s some backing material behind the screen that’s supposed to help diffuse the backlight, and it’s gotten bunched up or pressed up against the actual LCD. They said it would cost a flat rate of $280 for an out-of-warranty repair, which, I’ll admit, it much less than I thought but still money I’d notice.

But after thinking about it, maybe that’s something I can do. I’d have to pull the screen apart and smooth out the backing material.

Decisions… decisions…

Merrit posted some pictures of the Apple Store Pioneer Place grand opening. I’m not in any of them, although if you can see the two guys in white t-shirts in the middle of this pic, I would be behind them and a couple of people back in line.

And there’s more pictures of the opening over at ifo Apple Store, which is apparently a blog devoted entirely to Apple’s retail stores. Again, no pics of me.

When I get batteries for my camera, I’m going to post a picture of the box that my free Apple t-shirt came in, simply because the design of the box, a box fer cryin’ out loud for what is normally a free give-away item, demonstrates Apple’s commitment to detail. The box unfolds like a piece of origami. There’s probably picture on that ifo Apple Store site linked to above.

There was actually a line of people waiting to get into the Pioneer Place Apple Store this morning.

Sheesh, maybe Apple computers really are a cult.

I got downtown a little before 9:00 AM. After picking up a soy chai (grande, no water, no foam) and a cinnamon scone (thanks, Starbucks! Wow my life is filled with cultish behavior), I wandered down to the lower level, and encountered the line.

I knew that the store had 1000 t-shirts to give away, and there was only about 50-60 people in line, so I figured I could go away and come back and still get a shirt, but I joined my fellow Apple-loving-folk and waited it out.

Sadly, there were no hot girls near me, just a family with three boys on one side, and an older guy on the other, and other assorted non-single or non-hot trendy geeks, so I plugged in my iPod to while away the half-hour. (The Blues Brothers’ original soundtrack, for those wanting to know what I was listening to.) At one point one of the boys in front of me counted the people in line and announced that he was #55. Good to know.

The manager for the store kept coming out and whooping it up and shouting, and because we were in the tunnel between the two sections, which was enclosed a bit, it was very loud and annoying.

But, somehow, when at 9:30 AM all of the Apple Store employees came rushing out along the line, whooping and hollering and high-fiving the people in line, it didn’t seem as loud nor as annoying. Go figure.

It took me a while to actually get into the store, because they seemed to be enforcing the fire code or something, which was apparently around 40 people (not including staff, which was at least another 20). When I was at the head of the line, I chatted with a guy wearing a black fleece vest with an Apple logo and “Security” on the chest. Yes, he was, in fact, Apple Security, and he normally worked down in Cupertino; he had flown up for the opening of the store. Funny. He warmed up when I mentioned that I’d worked for Customer Relations in Austin for a brief while. We traded Steve Jobs stories. I can’t repeat any of his. Probably shouldn’t commit any of mine to the internets, either.

I did get a shirt, and was going to buy something but didn’t because it was all full-bore retail price, no “Opening Day” sales or anything.

On my lunch break, I and a friend went to scope out the new Apple Store at Pioneer Place.

The windows were all papered over, but I could peek through the gaps.

Inside were a bunch of young, hip kids, in black t-shirts, lounging amidst all the oak, white, and chrome.

It looked like tech heaven.

OK, this is more like it.

Apple is opening one of their retail stores in the Pioneer Place mall, in downtown Portland. Grand opening is this Saturday.

I guess they read my earlier post and decided not to be scared off by the meth users.

Yay!