The official bullshit is to reinstall the Licensing Service (why is there even such a thing). But alas, that didn't fix it.

Also updating AutoCad to 2025 (we're barely even in 2024) didn't fix it (but made it work until the next reboot).

The trick was to go to System Settings > General > Login Items and heading down to "Allow in the Background". Make sure AutoDesk is turned on (no need to turn on AutoCAD).

Sigh.

Quick and dirty script that shows your Mac battery information (health, cycles, etc). If an Apple keyboard or mouse is connected, it'll also display the battery % of those.

# Battery information
battery() {

	if !ioreg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
		echo "ioreg not found. Exiting."
		return 1
	fi

	_ioreg=`ioreg -l`
	_profile=`system_profiler SPPowerDataType`

	MOUSE=`echo $_ioreg -l | grep -A 10 "Mouse" | grep '"BatteryPercent" =' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'`
	TRACKPAD=`echo $_ioreg -l | grep -A 10 "Track" | grep '"BatteryPercent" =' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'`
	KEYBOARD=`echo $_ioreg -l | grep -A 10 "Keyboard" | grep '"BatteryPercent" =' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g'`
	CYCLE=`echo $_profile | grep "Cycle Count" | awk '{print $3}'`

	if [ -n "$MOUSE" ]; then
		echo "Mouse: "$MOUSE"%"
	fi

	if [ -n "$TRACKPAD" ]; then
		echo "Trackpad: "$TRACKPAD"%"
	fi

	if [ -n "$KEYBOARD" ]; then
		echo "Keyboard: "$KEYBOARD"%"
	fi

	if [ -n "$CYCLE" ] && [ "$CYCLE" -ne 0 ]; then
		echo "Mac battery "`echo $_profile | grep "State of Charge" | awk '{print $5}'`"%"
		echo "Charging: "`echo $_profile | grep "Charging" | head -n 1 | awk '{print $2}'`
		echo "Cycles: "$CYCLE
		echo "Condition: "`echo $_profile | grep "Condition" | awk '{print $2}'`
		echo "Health: "`echo $_profile | grep "Maximum Capacity" | awk '{print $3}'`
	fi
}

Outputs something similar to this (no mouse or keyboard connected):

nazgul ~ $ battery
Mac battery 54%
Charging: No
Cycles: 224
Condition: Normal
Health: 89%

This works on zsh and may not work in bash.

It probably sucks, spies on you, does MitM attacks, breaks most video conferencing tools, and is generally not very stable... Also... Zero trust!

Add this function to your .bashrc or .zshrc (whichever shell you're using*):

func killwarp() {
	sudo launchctl remove com.cloudflare.1dot1dot1dot1.macos.warp.daemon
	sudo killall Cloudflare\ WARP
}

Open a new shell window (to reload your dot files), and type killwarp.

This will permanently disable Warp (until your Mac is rebooted; as it's most likely force installed/started by your admin). So just run this after every reboot.

(*) Find out with echo $SHELL.

U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow Inc and the Singapore government said they were transforming old sneakers into playgrounds and running tracks. Reuters put that promise to the test by planting hidden trackers inside 11 pairs of donated shoes.

Most got exported instead.

[...]

t a rundown market on the Indonesian island of Batam, a small location tracker was beeping from the back of a crumbling second-hand shoe store. A Reuters reporter followed the high-pitched ping to a mound of old sneakers and began digging through the pile.

There they were: a pair of blue Nike running shoes with a tracking device hidden in one of the soles.

These familiar shoes had traveled by land, then sea and crossed an international border to end up in this heap. They weren’t supposed to be here.

Five months earlier, in July 2022, Reuters had given the shoes to a recycling program spearheaded by the Singapore government and U.S. petrochemicals giant Dow Inc. In media releases and a promotional video posted online, that effort promised to harvest the rubberized soles and midsoles of donated shoes, then grind down the material for use in building new playgrounds and running tracks in Singapore.

Dow, a major producer of chemicals used to make plastics and other synthetic materials, in the past has launched recycling efforts that have fallen short of their stated aims. Reuters wanted to follow a donated shoe from start to finish to see if it did, in fact, end up in new athletic surfaces in Singapore, or at least made it as far as a local recycling facility for shredding.

[...]

Apple purposely disables a feature on your phone during unrest.

Anti-government protests flared in several Chinese cities and on college campuses over the weekend. But the country’s most widespread show of public dissent in decades will have to manage without a crucial communication tool, because Apple restricted its use in China earlier this month.

AirDrop, the file-sharing feature on iPhones and other Apple devices, has helped protestors in many authoritarian countries evade censorship. That’s because AirDrop relies on direct connections between phones, forming a local network of devices that don’t need the internet to communicate. People can opt into receiving AirDrops from anyone else with an iPhone nearby.

That changed on Nov. 9, when Apple released a new version of its mobile operating system, iOS 16.1.1, to customers worldwide. Rather than listing new features, as it often does, the company simply said, “This update includes bug fixes and security updates and is recommended for all users.”

Hidden in the update was a change that only applies to iPhones sold in mainland China: AirDrop can only be set to receive messages from everyone for 10 minutes, before switching off. There’s no longer a way to keep the “everyone” setting on permanently on Chinese iPhones. The change, first noticed by Chinese readers of 9to5Mac, doesn’t apply anywhere else.

[...]

But why did Apple rush out the change unannounced, in an unassuming update to iOS in early November, and apply it only to Chinese iPhones? One clue may lie in what happened the month prior, when Xi Jinping’s anointment to a third term as China’s leader was met with rare displays of public dissent.

In the most visible protest, a dissident now known as Bridge Man lit a fire on a bridge in Beijing to draw attention to his protest banners. One read, “Go on strike at school and work, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.” References to the banners were quickly censored across the Chinese internet, but photos still made their way through private channels. Vice reported that Bridge Man’s messages were spreading on the Shanghai subway via AirDrop.

Source: qz

The unannounced update has, as always, been twisted as a useful update to "protect the users".

Besides all the power they already hold "curating" the app stores, imagine, next time, Apple (or any other Big Tech Corp) decides to disable your camera when the police put their knees on the neck of a poor guy, or they decide to disable the keyboard inside certain Telegram chat rooms, or disable Wi-Fi and data inside certain geo-zones, etc...

When we're travelling (read: holiday) she's carrying an old Lenovo ThinkPad 13 (great device!) just "in case" she needs to open AutoCAD and edit something minor or read the drawings/dimensions. But honestly, most of the time that device is turned off and dead weight.

But all the above is just an excuse to "I was bored, and I wanted to test something": can I use an old Raspberry Pi (zero W) to remotely wake her Intel NUC, and then use Tailscale to use RD on her iPad? Well, yes I can.

I completed this using:

• Tailscale to remote desktop from anywhere to home
• Cloudflare Tunnels, Access and DNS to have a web interface to wake the desktop
• A Linux device that's always on and in the same LAN, and that'll run a PHP script.

Prep work: enable WOL

First off: enable Wake-on-LAN (WOL) in the BIOS and in your Windows settings. This article explains it for Intel NUCs, but would be similar enough for most devices. The Device Manager pane looked different on our i5 NUC, but was close enough.

On Mac, you just need to enable it in the Energy preference pane, for Linux I have no clue. 🤷‍♂️

Second step: have a working Raspberry Pi (or any Linux device) in the same LAN. This device needs to be turned on 24/7, so use something that uses very little power.

I do have a more powerful RPi4 I wish I could've reused (running Docker and some other "serious" stuff; however it's currently in a different VLAN, and it's quite crucial the Linux device is in the same LAN as the device(s) you want to wake up), so I went with an old Raspberry Pi Zero W that was collecting dust (it used to run pwnagotchi).

On the Linux device, install etherwake. The command to run is quite simply etherwake aa:bb:cc:11:22:33 (= the ethernet MAC address of your device).

If this doesn't wake your desktop, something is wrong and there's no point continuing. Go and troubleshoot.

Install Tailscale and RD

On the (Windows) desktop and your iPad, install Tailscale. Login, and make sure it works by pinging from one to the other.

Then set up Remote Desktop on both (Windows, iPad). You should test and make sure you can properly connect using the LAN IP address and then the Tailscale IP address.

Fun fact: I create a DNS record for all my devices using Cloudflare DNS with the syntax of device-name.ts.yeri.be, so I don't need to ever remember IPs, and can easily ssh or ping devices without having to look up IPs. 

Fun fact side track: I actually have a dynamic script that runs (on Linux) and creates hostname.ts.yeri.be for the Tailscale IP, hostname.wg.yeri.be based on the Wireguard IP, hostname.lan.yeri.be based on the LAN IP. This dyndns script runs every so often and updates IPs if needed. All this is running using Cloudflare DNS and their API. Super convenient.

Nginx, php and etherwake

I'm a 80s kid, so I'll use dirty PHP to run this script. I'm sure I'll go straight to hell for this, but yolo.

Install nginx and PHP (no need for MySQL and other stuff).

etherwake requires root to run (because it needs root access to create a weird magic ethernet packet). Create a file in /etc/sudoers.d/etherwake and add this line:

www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/etherwake

This will allow www-data (nginx/php) to run /usr/sbin/etherwake using sudo, without password.

In /var/www/html/ create an index.php file with:

<html>
<head><title>Wake on Lan</title></head>
<body>
<p>Wake up <a href="mycooldesktop.php">My Cool Desktop</a>
</body>
</html>

And a mycooldesktop.php (or whatever) file with:

<?php
$output = shell_exec('sudo /usr/sbin/etherwake aa:bb:cc:11:22:33 2>&1');
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
?>
<p><a href="..">Back</a></p>

It ain't pretty -- but it gets the job done. 

And be sure to edit the MAC address to match your desktop's ethernet MAC address.

Cloudflare tunnels

Install Cloudflare Tunnel (via Zero Trust dashboard).

When creating a new tunnel, the dashboard will give you all needed commands to install the tunnel on your RPi -- but be sure to select the right OS/architecture (arm64? arm? armhf?).

And then point the tunnel to http://localhost. No need to mess around with SSL certs.

Lastly, set up Cloudflare Access (via the same Zero Trust dashboard): create a new application, and make sure only approved users can sign in (i.e.: using a pin code emailed to only approved emails).

You can try it yourself via wol.superuser.one. You won't get in. :)

Optionally, but recommended: lock down Nginx to only allow connections from localhost (127.0.0.0/8 and ::1) if using Cloudflare Tunnels, or Cloudflare IPs if using port forwarding with Cloudflare Access in front. 

To recap

• We used Tailscale to create a VPN network between the desktop and the iPad. The big benefit is that Tailscale works effortlessly across NAT networks without having to open ports,
• We used Cloudflare DNS so we don't need to remember hostnames :),
• We used Cloudflare Tunnels to make sure the RPi web interface is accessible across NAT (without port forwarding) and from anywhere,
• We used Cloudflare Acces and locked down access to the right people using ACLs,
• We used etherwake running on a RPi to wake up devices that are hibernating or turned off.

And that's it really.

PS: technically WoL works with WiFi, but when I enabled WoL on the WiFi adapter, the NUC refused to hibernate/sleep for more than a minute, and kept waking itself up. So, there seems to be some kind of trigger in my network that keeps waking it up. Also, not sure if WoL via WiFi would work if the device is turned off (as opposed to sleep or hibernate). I just ended up using ethernet. 

PPS: both Cloudflare Tunnels and Tailscale use Wireguard tech in the background, so that's really cool. 

And of course the actual ad (how iPhone is super mega amazing) 🤷🏼‍♂️ but nice to see how they did it. And neat to see how tech evolved since my first iPhone 3G. What they fail to mention is the insane time it takes to film all that, and the post production editing... ;)

Fun project, and crappy customer service from DHL.

Interesting to see that many years after Apple started creating their CPUs for the iPhone (and now laptops/desktops), so many companies are following. Google is not new to building their chips (TPU, Titan (used in security keys and as encryption module for servers/Pixel phones), and likely more), but quite new to more generalised computing CPU for phones and laptops.

And it makes sense -- a lot of the generic CPUs were too generalist and not that great at their job (and are plagued with bugs). It came with heavy power usage. Having a ML/AI chip, a GPU chip, a generalist CPU chip (or two, one focussing on high performance, and one on efficiency, like the M1), one for security/encryption (Titan/T2), etc.

Curious to see how much of a head start Apple really has, and very eager to finally see some real innovation in the CPU space (sorry AMD with Ryzen: too little, too late).

Let's see if Intel and AMD will be able to adapt and reinvent themselves and what it means for ARM (and the ARM IP issue in China), and if other architectures like MIPS are making a chance.

There are a few Reddit posts with other people facing the same issue with AirPod Pros (case not wanting to charge further than 74%) but no concrete answer or solution is posted.

For me, what helped, was to use a wall charger (doesn't have to be Apple); it's still using a similar usb-A-to-lightning cable. Letting it charge for a while managed to get it to 100%.

Why 74% and not… 75%? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: as some people pointed out, this may actually be Apple's Optimized Battery Charging. I am not seeing any notification though.

Quite annoying -- but it's a beta after all. I shouldn't complain. I did what every good beta tester would do: I filed a bug (it's still unanswered from what I can see).

Beta updates came and went but the date did not come back. Would I be unable to use my watch to figure out the date?! It's when you lose a feature that you see how often a day you use it.

And then, out of the blue, the big stable release. Apple Watch OS 7 is released to the general public. Surely, I thought, they must've fixed it now.

But alas, I was to be disappointed.

I updated Shan's watch (that never ran the beta) to see if she had the same issue -- but her watch was fine. Sooooo... What was I doing wrong? Why me, Apple Overlord?

I started fiddling around with my language and regional settings (nope, not it), and was contemplating a factory reset (argh, re-adding all my cards to Apple Pay)...

And then...

An epiphany.

They wouldn't?!?! Would they??

Something only Apple would dare to do.

I deleted the Apple Calendar app (on my iPhone) -- as I use the Google Calendar app. Would that somehow be related?

And guess what... Installing the Apple Calendar app via the App Store resolved it:

Check Apple Watch and the option is back!

That's one way of forcing people to use your apps.

The answer is... Yes -- but...

So plugging it straight into the USB-C port of the keyboard doesn't do anything. I.e.: the dongle is not recognised, and for what it's worth the switch doesn't even light up to say a cable is connected. So that doesn't work.

But plugging it straight into the iPad works... The network switch lights up, the iPad (under Settings) gets a new option called "Ethernet" (which oddly shows you a selection of connected adapters first -- but I don't know how you can have more than one). Clicking through you see the same options as you would for your WiFi network: IPs, DNS, etc.

Tadaaa!

I used an adapter from work, a Belkin, and I believe it's the same one that's being sold on the Apple Store. I don't know if any dongle will work though (driver-wise and stuff).

Probably not that useful but good to know.

Shell servers... so 2005. I remember in the good old IRC days people asking for (free) shell servers to run their eggdrop and stuff. OMG am I getting old? Anyhow...

I ssh quite often. I manage quite a few servers (~15?) and routers that require me to login and do some random stuff. I also work on a laptop quite often and that means closing the lid and moving around.

First of all, mosh is amazing and allows you to stay connected via ssh, even with crappy (airport/hotel) internet as well as moving around networks -- that solves half the problem. If you are not using it, start using it now!

Second, during my datacenter technician days at Google we used to have a "jump server" -- a shell server that allowed us to bridge the corporate network and ssh into prod machines. Doubt that's still used nowadays, but the idea stuck. I wanted something similar to ssh from, wherever I was, and easily connect to my servers. And as the network the shell server is running on is stable, I only need to use mosh to the shell server. Thereafter, the connection very rarely dies.

And I guess, third, I recently purchased an iPad Pro and I really need to have my local "dev" environment with my git repo that I edit quite frequently but iPadOS isn't really your average computer, and doesn't even have a proper terminal. This is my experiment to make iPadOS work as a main computer when on the move.

Enter box -- Docker shell server...

I've copied over the files I use to this example repo, and added some comments. Mind you that this repo acts as a proof of concept and isn't kept up to date, as I have my own private repo -- but this should give you a good idea on how to set up your own shell server with Docker.

start.sh -- this is a simple script that I execute when I first run or need to update the container. I execute the same file on two different servers: Liana, my Raspberry Pi at home and Ocean, my server in Amsterdam.

zsh.sh -- this installs what I care about for zsh. This could be part of the Dockerfile but for some reason I separated it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

git.sh -- this clones my Git repos so I can edit and commit stuff from the shell server.

run.sh -- this file is launched by Dockerfile at the end and executes what matters: the ssh daemon. It also adds a Wireguard route and executes the scripts above.

Dockerfile -- this installs everything I need and configures the whole thing. I've added tons of comments that should get you going.

I am also cloning misc and homefiles as submodules in files/ -- but you should change this to something that works for you. See the Dockerfile for more info.

• Late 2013 Macbook Pro (15.4" Retina)
• 2.3Ghz i7 (quad core + Hyper-Threading)
• 16Gb RAM
• 512Gb SSD
• Intel Iris onboard GFX + Nvidia GeForce GT 750M PCE GFX
• BE-Azerty keyboard
• €2445,41 in 28 October 2013
• SUPER fast
• Minor scratch in the back of the LCD
• Minor (not very noticeable) corrosion at the right hand
• Weird scratch "smear" in LCD display (only visible on white background; about 2x2cm; to be honest it's not really visible)
• Besides this very decent Macbook Pro, it has been used, but in very good shape for the extreme work it has committed. Taken care of this device as if it was my own child. And did I mention blazing fast?

Specs:

Pictures:

It’s a Macbook Pro !

“Smear” above “AGE” (really hard to see)

Scratch at the back (knocked it against a glass door at night in my old apartment)

Corrosion at the right hand (not left, don’t ask why – probably because I use the touch pad all the time).

More info:

(Source)

Alas, its battery died after 3-4 years (lasting only about 10-20 minutes)… :(

I still have that iPod, but it hasn’t been used. I’ve tried using it as a portable external disk, but that didn’t really work.

Not too long after that, I bought a 12" Powerbook (G4) with 750-something RAM. Top range back in the days. :) That one got destroyed after someone tripped over the power cable (before the mag-safe era) at university.

I had to restore my trash folder from backups every 7 days (yay for rdiff-backup).

It took me a while to figure it out… The problem first appeared in October, right after several big changes:

• Yosemite update
• Airmail to Airmail 2 update (I was convinced this was the root cause, looking at my clients instead of the server)
• Android 5.0.x
• Android Email app sunset, changes to GMail app
• IPv6 working decently at home after updating my RPi to Fritzbox devices.
• Random connection errors in GMail app (this was due to misconfigured DNS in the GMail app and causing IPv6 catch all to redirect to the webserver instead of the mailserver. It didn't happen consistently because over mobile (4G & lower) there is no IPv6 and at home is randomly falls back to IPv4 as well. IPv4 DNS was well configured.
• Moving my ~100.000 deleted e-mails from "Deleted Items" (OS X Mail default) to "Trash" (Android & Courier default) to stop having to move them manually from one folder to the other every so often. => this was eventually the cause but I didn't realize.

Debugging was also extremely slow as I had to wait 7 days before being able to check if the changes I made helped anything.

I eventually figured out that it was not Airmail when I rebuild my whole mail database and it defaulted back to putting my deleted mails into the Archive folder instead of Trash. Archive mails were kept over 7 days, but items in Trash still removed.

That’s when I started looking at Courier IMAP config: /etc/courier/imapd (and not imapd-ssl).

There’s an option that says:

##NAME: IMAP_EMPTYTRASH:0
#
# The following setting is optional, and causes messages from the given
# folder to be automatically deleted after the given number of days.
# IMAP_EMPTYTRASH is a comma-separated list of folder:days.  The default
# setting, below, purges 7 day old messages from the Trash folder.
# Another useful setting would be:
#  
# IMAP_EMPTYTRASH=Trash:7,Sent:30
#
# This would also delete messages from the Sent folder (presumably copies
# of sent mail) after 30 days.  This is a global setting that is applied to
# every mail account, and is probably useful in a controlled, corporate
# environment.
#
# Important: the purging is controlled by CTIME, not MTIME (the file time
# as shown by ls).  It is perfectly ordinary to see stuff in Trash that's
# a year old.  That's the file modification time, MTIME, that's displayed.
# This is generally when the message was originally delivered to this
# mailbox.  Purging is controlled by a different timestamp, CTIME, which is
# changed when the file is moved to the Trash folder (and at other times too).
#
# You might want to disable this setting in certain situations - it results
# in a stat() of every file in each folder, at login and logout.
#
IMAP_EMPTYTRASH=Trash:7

Comment out that last line, and restart courier-imap(-ssl)… Simple as that.

This solved my issue.

I’m not sure when that config change happened (Debian update?) and I do not know who at Courier thought it was a good idea …. But sheesh.

And the original blog post is here.

This will turn on a Mac Mini (at least PowerPC arch, not sure about Intel), running Linux, the moment it has power again.

echo ‘server_mode=1’ > /proc/pmu/options

Edit & Note: This option seems to be reset after every boot to. So add it to rc.local or something.

It comes with the power adapter, a DVI to VGA adapter, and in the picture below is the optional WiFi adapter.

Tyr ~ # uname -a Linux Tyr 3.2.0-4-powerpc #1 Debian 3.2.54-2 ppc GNU/Linux

Tyr ~ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 500 217 283 0 11 171 -/+ buffers/cache: 34 466 Swap: 953 0 953

Tyr ~ # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 73G 882M 72G 2% / udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev tmpfs 51M 212K 50M 1% /run /dev/disk/by-uuid/bf89e3dc-6606-45e1-a87f-ab8e1be66b85 73G 882M 72G 2% / tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock tmpfs 291M 0 291M 0% /run/shm tmpfs 251M 40M 211M 16% /var/cache/apt tmpfs 251M 73M 179M 29% /var/lib/apt/lists tmpfs 291M 0 291M 0% /tmp

Tyr ~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 7447A, altivec supported clock : 1416.666661MHz revision : 1.2 (pvr 8003 0102) bogomips : 83.24 timebase : 41620907 platform : PowerMac model : PowerMac10,1 machine : PowerMac10,1 motherboard : PowerMac10,1 MacRISC3 Power Macintosh detected as : 287 (Mac mini) pmac flags : 00000010 L2 cache : 512K unified pmac-generation : NewWorld Memory : 512 MB

Contact: yeri+mac@tiete.be

This is a 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo device, with 2Gb RAM. It has a 160Gb SATA drive, spinning at 7200rpm. It’s an Azerty keyboard.

It’s currently running Mavericks (10.9.x).

The Macbook Pro is slightly scratched here and there from normal use. The battery got replaced about 2 years ago (it’s still a removable battery). The right speaker sometimes cracks a bit and the DVD RW has trouble reading rewrite-able media and too modern CDs/DVDs (audio CDs for example are fine) (known bug from this DVD reader).

Price: discussable

Contact: yeri+mbp@tiete.be

For sale: a Macbook Air 13" (2011), 4Gb RAM, 128Gb SSD, QWERTY (!).

The MBA got acquired mid 2011 in Hong Kong by Candy.

Downside: the screen got cracked about a year ago during travel. After a couple of months it started to bleed, but has been stable now for over 6 months. Screen can be replaced for ~€400 at an Apple Repair Center or DIY for ~€100-200 via Alibaba.

Macbook has been used for a year like this. Can be used with external display as well.

Comes with the original adapter and battery is working fine.

Item located in Antwerp, but can be delivered in Ghent or Brussels.

Price: TBD

Contact: yeri+mba@tiete.be

Pics (click for bigger pictures):

(Source)

I never found a way to get rid of it, and it has annoyed me ever since. Until yesterday...

This is how to get rid of it:

1. play movie
2. drag to 2nd screen
3. click Video > Float on Top
4. go full screen (cmd+F or Video > Fullscreen)

Keep in mind, that once you get out of full screen, and get back in it, the bar will be back. Enabling and disabling the above mentioned option won't change it anymore. The only solution I've found was to quit VLC entirely, reopen it, go back the where the movie was, click the option, and go full screen...

plxthx for buggy releases.

Edit: Today I am unable to apply my above mentioned 'fix'. I have however found another option under VLC preferences: "Interface > Use the native fullscreen mode". Deselect that option, and it seems to be working.

Just as with my previous Macbook Pro, I went for overkill in the hope to keep it as long as possible.

Except for a faulty GPU, my previous Mac was actually still very capable, and I would not have thought about getting rid of it any time soon. It was still smooth and blazing fast. I had quite some bad experience with my first Macbook Pro (see below, SATA and 2Gb RAM); that device was already crippled after a few weeks of usage. Annoyingly slow and laggish.

So I hope to be able to do 4+ years with this one. This was my Macbook Air (with a SDD):

These are my frustrations/comments now that I’m back on a Pro:

• FFFFFFUUUUU for not having a builtin ethernet port. Same for the Air. I have had SO much shit not having a simple ethernet port (to test UTP, and for FlatTurtle demos). It's unbelievable how much I still rely on a simple ethernet port. Needless to say I got a thunderbolt-to-ethernet adapter (another 20 or so € to Apple).
• CD burner. I'll miss you. Like, twice per year, I still burn an iso to CD to boot something or to install Linux. I'll have to get a big/decent USB drive and start using that I guess.
• WHY OH WHY DID YOU KILL THE REMOTE CONTROL. It already bothered me the Air didn't have it... It was very useful with VLC and watching movies. You'll be greatly missed.
• It's the first time I'm on Retina. It looks better. But it seems the actual resolution is the same as the Air (WTF!) and lower than the previous Macbook Pro (WTF!). I had the high-res MBP previously: "Optional 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit widescreen display with 1680 by 1050 pixels (glossy or antiglare)"; I miss that resolution :( whenever I'm doing something on my mom's Mac I really instantly notice the huge extra room. Now I could turn off retina and go for the higher resolution but... sigh...
• Next to my Air, now that I got used to the size, it looks huge. But the more I work with it, the more I like my bigger screen and the somewhat more manly/robust size. I've also noticed I've been using my 2nd display a lot less (but this is also partly due to all that crap on my desk at the moment, and the temperature dropping in my study room with the cold weather).
• Why did you have to change Magsafe adapter size. I ordered a Magsafe1 to Magsafe2 adapter from Techdata. another 7 euro (excl tax) down the drain.
• It's surprisingly thin. Why did no other hardware maker beat them to it?
• THANK YOU APPLE FOR STILL INCLUDING A SD CARD SLOT. Yay for Raspberry Pi and other hacking.
• The case no longer slices the wrists. It has somewhat been rounded.
• Bluetooth + WiFi seems bugged (random packet loss (like 20-30 packets) and/or high latency. Turning off Bluetooth insta fixes the problem. Reconnecting to WiFi also fixes it (and keeping bluetooth on). This is shit. Don't blame it on the router or signal strength, my previous MBP never had this problem, and neither did the Air.
• Every connector at the left side of this Macbook Pro is too close to eachother. I have line-out, USB disk, my Mini display port and Magsafe2. Annoying when I need to just unplug the USB drive.
• I managed to get 9h30 out of the battery. That's a normal person's work day (yeah, not quite in startups). And still had 17% to spare. While admittedly, I wasn't doing that much on it (60-70% brightness, Sublime Text, Terminal, Git, SSH, some very light mailing & browsing and waiting for my desktop to finish bootstrapping while watching Star Wars semi actively), it's still quite remarkable. If a i7 can do this, why can't a stupid smartphone survive a day on 3G?
• When having to charge your battery though, and while sitting 'legged' with the Macbook on my lap, the Magsafe2 (having its cord not longer aligned to the laptop, and being longer) causes my Magsafe to always disconnect. I didn't have this problem with the previous Magsafe (version two of Magsafe1)

And for the sake of completion: (A G4 powerbook, but don’t have any system info of that one; although it stills runs and is used by my dad).

Macbook Pro mid or late 2007 (7200 rpm, but it has always been a damn slow machine):

Macbook pro mid 2010 (my mom got it now):

It took a weird route (Shanghai to Korea to Kazakhstan?!) but I finally got it. Yayyies.

Later a blog post about what it's like to migrate from a Macbook Air to a Macbook Pro again.

I tried rebooting (and unchecking “reopen apps at startup”), which helped for about 5 minutes.

I tried closing down apps (which helped; especially keeping Mail closed helped a lot). But even watching a YouTube or playing Music on Google Music caused the CPU fan to start spinning way louder than before.

It quickly came to a point it started driving my crazy and I had a really loud machine which was also sluggish and laggy at some random points (=> not sure if it’s related, but I haven’t had it since).

The thing I tried was a SMC reset, and that did the trick. Since then I haven’t heard the fan on normal load anymore.

Do this (on an Air):

1. Turn off the Mac
2. Be sure it's connected to the Magsafe
3. Hit left shift + ctrl + alt (option) + power (like just one second or something apparently)
4. release the keys
5. and boot normally (hit power button)
6. that should be it

• It's light. Very light. My bag is now too big and I can barely feel it hanging at my shoulder.
• It's light. Very light. I used to, when moving around (for example when testing WiFi, changing desks, going to a meeting, etc), jungle my Macbook Pro on one hand, with the display open and everything, and it would stay on my three or four fingers very nicely. With the Air, I can't just move around like this as even the wind/air might knock it off my hand. Paper aeroplane comes into my mind.
• The CPU is somewhere near the letters 1-2-3-A-Z-E-Q-S (Azerty keyboard). I tend to let my fingers rest between the keys on the bare metal. This can get quite hot. I have never noticed this with the MBP.
• The keyboard of the Air is better. Smoother. More fun to hit. Nicer muffled sound. Hard to explain. Perhaps also because this keyboard hasn't been used as often.
• It stills seems ... breakable. Not as robust.
• I don't like the bezel. WHY APPLE WHY? It's metal instead of the nicer black glass that covers everything.

• The metal at the touch pad doesn't slice my wrists all the time. Which is good I guess. My Macbook Pro's metal is also damaged there. I don't know how. It's more damaged at the right hand side, and I keep my watch at my left hand side, so it can't be that.
• The smaller screen (13" instead of 15") doesn't bother me.
• An i5 1.7GHz with 4Gb RAM is fast enough (my MBP is an i7 something with 8Gb ram). SSD is thus key to the speed.
• I can't really say if the speakers are worse or not.
• The resolution is lower. Which is annoying in some cases.
• There a big price difference. I believe the Air was a little over 1000 euro. My Macbook Pro was apparently (with an Apple mouse) 3067 or something euro (and with 21% vat).
• My gf also has (actually entirely the same) Air. I feel that one day I'll leave to a client or the office with the wrong Mac.
• It's still the same Magsafe. Which is good. Very good. Why-oh-why apple, did you decide to make a thinner/different one. You're such as bitch.

Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.

I have a Raspberry Pi, acting as TimeMachine (using afp/Bonjour/Netatalk).

There are several things I tried to solve this, including messing in the sparebundle from Linux (chowning) and deleting my TM .plist. This probably messed up my backup a bit.

But what seemed to ‘solve’ it for me was:

1. Start a backup manually (it will fail after a minute or two with the above mentioned error)
2. Open finder, and go to the now mounted disk
3. In my case, there was a <date>.inProgress file
4. If TimeMachine mounted the share for you, you will have write access (see notes below)
5. Delete the inProgress file
6. Empty your trash
7. It should be gone:

   

8. Unmount everything
9. Try backing up again

In my case it changed to this error, which happens to me every so often due to corrupt backups (loss of network (because the drive is on VPN, and when I connect to my VPN Mac starts backing up, eventhough I actually don’t really need/want that, it just happens to find the LAN), sleeping at the wrong moment, and Apple just generally not supporting DIY-TimeMachine). So this does mean I have to start from scratch anyhow… :(

Notes: I’ve tried to manually mount the afp or smb share first, and open  the .sparebundle myself via finder.

Like this:

However, both via Finder as via terminal (including sudo) gave permission errors (partly reading, mostly writing) such as:

Used my Raspberry Pi, with an USB disk as TimeMachine. Another disk as NAS/storage. It’s just quite slow… Not sure whether it’s my WiFi or RPi that can’t keep up.

But for now, it’s working.

2013-02-05 17:44:31 write UDPv4: Can't assign requested address (code=49)
2013-02-05 17:44:33 write UDPv4: Can't assign requested address (code=49)

This seems to appear more often when swapping WiFi/IP range (after my Mac goes into sleep). But also happens when connecting to the same WiFi. It doesn’t change anything whether I disconnect OpenVPN before putting the Mac to sleep.

The solution I’ve found to solve this is:

1. Disconnect OpenVPN (via Tunnelblick)
2. Turn off WiFi
3. Run the script I've attached below (flush.sh)
4. Fill in your admin/sudo password
5. Hit ctrl+C if it doesn't exit instantly (happens in 99% of the cases)
6. Run the script once or twice more to be sure, it will exit correctly this time
7. Reconnect to the WiFi
8. Reconnect OpenVPN (via Tunnelblick): this time it will work

Edit: updated script (29/01/2014)

#!/bin/bash
# Change IFACE to match your WiFi interface 
# (en0 on Macbook Air and Retina, en1 on old Macbook Pros with ethernet) 
IFACE=en0
sudo ifconfig $IFACE down
sudo route flush
sudo ifconfig $IFACE up

In case the script hangs (sometimes, route flush hangs): hit ctrl+C, and execute it again.

At some random point after upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion was unable to add new printers.

As I don’t really add new printers on a daily base, I have no idea when it actually happened or what might have caused it.

• If I deleted an existing printer, and tried to readd it, it would throw errors at me.
• Plugging in (known) printers would pop up the dialog "click here to install/download/search for the printer driver", even though it was installed. Clicking install would give me an error no drivers could be found.
• Dymo Labelwriter shizzle stopped working.
• The driver list (system pref > printers > add > select printer software) would be empty, while on another Mac it was fully populated.
• Mac would never find the printer driver for the printer, requiring manual intervention (but, yea, as the list was empty, there wasn't much to select).

This is, as you might guess, quite annoying. Unable to print any new labels or print out any papers (and invoices ! -.-) ) I had to use another Mac just for printing.

Things I tried:

• Thinking it was Dymo driver problem fucking up my ML: reinstall a million different version numbers: didn't help
• Thinking it was Dymo driver problem: remove Dymo from /Library/Printers and reinstall: didn't help
• Manually select the driver when trying to add a printer (Dymo printer in my case, under /Library/Printers/Dymo/bla/something): didn't work
• Reinstall Mac OS X ML without formatting: didn't help
• wipe drive, reinstall and restore all my files/settings: didn't help
• wipe drive, reinstall mac os x ML cleaning and start fresh: 50% of the newly installed apps were crashing (for example: Chrome was unable to start on a _clean_ system), but this is probably an entire different issue. Although I was starting to think my SSD or RAM was fucked.
• wipe drive, reinstall and restore only a part of my files: after trying a few times I found out NOT importing "other files" (which was, the first time I tried, around 20-30Gb... no idea what that was) and "personal settings" (but network settings were just fine): this caused printers to appear in my printer driver list again. Hooray! However:
  • Installing my network printer at home (Xerox) worked, but caused the driver list to go empty again, and printing actually never worked (at this point I was blaming Xerox for having shitty drivers, but I was wrong)
  • (after retrying a wipe-reinstall-half-import:) Installing the Dymo printer worked, but the Dymo software couldn't recognise any printer and this caused my driver list to be empty again
• (by now you can guess how many hours I've spent on this shit while I definitely had more useful things to do).
• Tried manually downloading printers
• and probably a lot of other stuff I would rather forget about

The solution:

After thinking whether I should just buy a new Mac and start fresh (I did actually never wipe my data since, well, probably my Powerbook), and been carrying the same settings and files over my various Macs. But I am just not ready to spend another 2500 euro on a Mac right now.

For, perhaps the first time ever, I went to ~/Library/Printers with Finder… I noticed all my printers were still in that list (even if I hadn’t any printers in system pref). And they are executable packages. They were .app packages actually.

Do note the difference between /Library and ~/Library.

Double clicking any of them resulted in a new yet very useful error message: “print service is not available”.

After a quick Google I came upon this page (which, for some reason is outdated), and that leads to this page (which doesn’t include ML and the Lion explanation I didn’t quite understand). But after some more Googling: tadaaa (#3): Ctrl-click (or right click) in the (probably non existing) list of printers and select “reset printing system”. I have no idea what this does, but suddenly driver names populated my driver list again. Hooray.

Disclaimer: I have yet to add an other printer (I don’t have any printers in my apartment, only at my parents’ house or at the office).

Things I love more and more:

Time Machine!

I’ve tried the following:

• readd the accounts
• reinstall adium
• run keychain first aid
• check this
• reboot
• pray to the gods, old and new
• check console (which is spawning a thousand million errors about read access denied, but Google told me it's a known Mountain Lion bug)
• update to Mountain Lion 10.8.2

• Uninstall Adium completely (tada)
• install 10.8.2 (well, I happen to reboot just after uninstalling and reinstall Adium, so I'm unsure whether the first or 2nd point was most useful).

Downside: have to readd all accounts (Google 2-step verification fun, and time to delete those old accounts (xmpp/icq) where I forgot the passwords), and reset all your settings.

Edit: it has been confirmed by Adium it’s enough to just upgrade to Mountain Lion 10.8.2 to solve this problem. No need to delete all your settings & accounts like I did… ;)

One of the mayor disturbances I had, was when I was using my Macbook Pro at my home office. I use an external display (some Samsung SyncMaster) as well as my MBP’s main display.

I put my MBP to sleep by simply closing the lid, keeping the power source and external display attached.

Pre-Lion this resulted in my MBP neatly going to sleep mode, in Mountain Lion this resulted in Mac OS using the external display as sole display and keeping the MBP running… Not something I was interested in, as it would either require me to unplug power before closing the lid or manually clicking the sleep button for my MBP to go to sleep.

After some great searching, I came along this post (page 3 and 4 have useful information) and I’ll summarize it here:

1. Unplug your external display
2. open Terminal (via spotlight for example) and type: sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"
3. Type your Mac password
4. Reboot and wait for Mac OS X to fully boot
5. Plug your external display back in. The resolution might be wrong and it might not recognise your display.
6. Go to sleep by closing the lid. It should now work correctly.
7. Upon reopening, the resolution will be fixed (if not, close and reopen or replug the external display -- I'm sure it'll be solved now).

If it screws up your system, just zap the PRAM next boot (cmd-opt-p-r) and you'll be back to the default Lion state. Or if you can still get into terminal, this command will get you back to Lion's default state as well:

sudo nvram -d boot-args

Basically, when adding your Facebook account, Adium opens some webpage asking you to login. I always logged in using my e-mail address (as… that was what the page was actually asking!).

I always managed to successfully login. Facebook then asked to identify my device (“Adium” or whatever).

However, here the problems started. Whenever I clicked save, I just ended up on the same page again, asking me to fill in my device name.

Checking my devices in Account Settings, I saw a million Adiums got added (because of my spam clicking/trying)…

I even tried to disable the “login approvals”, thinking that had something to do with it… But alas.

Thinking it had something to do with cookies (session cookies not/wrongly saved or something by Adium) I updated to betas… Many times, and still no fix. This was becoming annoying and pretty odd. Was I the only one have this problem?

I then tried, instead of using my email address, to use my actual account name (“facebook.com/YOUR-ACCOUNT-NAME”). And guess what… ;) Yea, I could log in, add the device correctly, and Facebook chat went online right away.

If tethering is unavailable on ones iPhone, and you have to helpdesk him/her out of it, go to:

Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network

And set “Cellular data” to:

APN: web.be
username: web
password: web

And reboot the device… Tethering should/will be available.

Apple’s patent to block recordings is reality and in operation. At some event such as Pukkelpop. During a crisis.

No one, as the infrared is beaming light into every smartphone, telling it to shut down the camera, is able to record or take pictures of what’s going on. Countless of proof is lost (or never made). Nothing on Twitpic, nothing on Youtube. No proof of how severe the storm/crisis actually was. No usable data for journalists and researchers to reuse afterwards. Unable to see whether the roof/screen/pillar/sound system/… fell before or after the whole tent actually collapsed…

Yes, think about that… “Free” world.

I’m selling two (used) iPhones;

• iPhone 2G (Edge-version). Currently jailbroken and working with all sims. 8Gb model
• iPhone 3G (Black edition). It's the Belgian, simlock-free modem (sold by Mobistar, in the days), 8Gb model.

Price? To be discussed. Please contact me at yeri+sales@tuinslak.org or 0474/61.01.30. Items can be picked up around Brussels, or can be send using a postal service (transportation fee is for you).

Feel free to ask any additional questions.

Pictures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

These devices will most likely be listed on eBay as well if no one responds within an acceptable time frame.

It was a bit hard to find software that would still allow me to jailbreak this 2G.

Soooow, I mirrored all I used.

Bootloader: 3.9 or 4.6

PwnageTool: 3.1.5

Be aware: you will need iTunes 9 (or 8, I guess) – iTunes 10 gives an error: “iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (1600).”

Follow basic instructions on the PwnageTool (export mode > you need to select the default IPSW) and you’ll get there.

As IPSW you can use the default IPSW iTunes downloads upon restoring. You’ll find the IPSW in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates/ (iTunes 10).

I still had iTunes 9 on my old PowerBook, but I guess you can find the installer on the net somewhere and use a virtual machine or something.

When booting the iPhone in DFU mode, iTunes will find the iPhone in recovery mode. Left click + ALT on the restore button and browse to the custom IPSW.

And, yes, this iPhone 2G is for sale :) Contact me if interested ;)

Raw file. Used Pete Warden’s app. Oh and if you missed the buzz, read this.

<string>9049EF7D-5873-4F54-A447-51D722009310</string>
<string>1C58722D-AFBD-464E-81BB-0E05C108BE06</string>

Between

<key>SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs</key>
<array>

And

</array>

You can find the Info.plist in:

~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/

Or

/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/

If you already opened Mail (and received the disable warning), it’s probably in a folder named “Bundles (Disabled)”; just move the content to Bundles again.

You can do the same ‘hack’ with GPGMail; it’s located at

(~ or /)Library/Mail/Bundles/GPGMail.mailbundle/Contents/

These UUIDs can be found in these two files (they get updated every Mac OS X update, and thus break plugins each time):

/Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Info.plist
/System/Library/Frameworks/Message.framework/Resources/Info.plist

This is what I had to do to compile it on my Macbook Pro;

• Install Xcode, if you haven't, and be sure to select UNIX Dev Support.

Or you'll get this error:

configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

• Export Xcode's gcc PATH:

PATH=/Developer/usr/bin/:$PATH

• Download wget
• In Terminal: untar it

tar xvzf wget-latest.*

• And compile it

cd wget directory
./configure
make
sudo make install

• In case you had an old (precompiled) wget installed;
  remove that version first (/usr/bin/wget probably).
  By default, this one will install itself in /usr/local/bin/wget which should be in your $PATH as well (in case it's not, make a symlink from the old /usr/bin/wget to /usr/local/bin/wget, or recompile with other installation directories).

However, as there is no handy way to lock a screen (like Windows+L on Wintendo machines)… And when I’m at home, I don’t want to fill in my password each time the screensaver jumps on. So I created this AppleScript after some Googling.

Sure, you can use Keychain Access, but that adds yet another icon to my menu bar.

Anyway, here is the simple AppleScript line (remove the new line):

do shell script "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\\
Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend"

And compiled as application downloadable here.

Be sure to uncheck “Disconnect when logging out” from your Network properties in System Preferences.

It’s really simple;

1. Open Terminal (Applications -> Utilities), type "sudo su" and enter your user's password.
2. Create a new file in /Library/LaunchDaemons, like this: "nano -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.yeri.ramfs.plist" (you can rename yeri to whatever you like)
3. And insert following content (ctrl+x to save - y - [enter]):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" 
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.yeri.ramfs</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/var/root/ramfs.sh</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

4. create a second file in /var/root/, like this: "nano -w /var/root/ramfs.sh"
5. And insert following content:

#!/bin/bash
ramfs_size_mb=64
mount_point=/private/tmp
ramfs_size_sectors=$((${ramfs_size_mb}10241024/512))
ramdisk_dev=hdid -nomount ram://${ramfs_size_sectors}
newfs_hfs -v ‘Volatile HD’ ${ramdisk_dev}
mkdir -p ${mount_point}
mount -o noatime -t hfs ${ramdisk_dev} ${mount_point}
chown root:wheel ${mount_point}
chmod 1777 ${mount_point}

6. chmod +x ramfs.sh and reboot. Check in Terminal with “mount” or “df -h” is everything is fine. To hide the disk icon on your desktop, check my old blog post.
7. In case Mac didn’t do so already, you might want to link /tmp to /private/tmp: “rm -r /tmp && ln -s /private/tmp /tmp”.
8. Should be it !

Source.

To access the iRail source code;

Be aware you need to be added as contributor before being able to commit changes.

1. get Git
2. [browse to some folder] mkdir git
3. cd git
4. git clone git@github.com:Tuinslak/iRail.git
5. cd iRail
6. git fetch

To edit & commit changes:

1. git add [file]
2. git commit -m 'edited [file], added this and that'
3. git push

To update repo

1. git fetch
2. git merge origin/master

To check log

1. git log

Info here and here, oh and here.

Nightly built accessible here. Git gets updated every night around 4h00. (see the index.php; set $dev to 1)

Feel free to commit [working and useful] updates. Decent updates will make the iRail.be website. Contact me if you have any questions or remarks. Most important bug is the station issue and my todo list can be found here.

I’m fairly new to all this Git-stuff, so I might have done some stuff wrong, or not optimised, or whatever. Contact me if so.

yeri$ sudo pmset -g | grep hibernatemode
hibernatemode   7

yeri$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled, noatime)
...
/dev/disk2     256Mi  6.0Mi  250Mi     3%    /private/tmp

I did indeed, as noted in the above howto/blog post, that shutting down is slower. Not that much, just a bit. As I usually don’t shut down, I guess this isn’t much of a problem. However, this additional mount point creates a disk on my desktop (or in finder), which is annoying.

However, this seems fixable with

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /private/tmp/

But, this option seems forgotten after a reboot and has to be started over. Crappy.

So, tried with AppleScript then, created a new script with following content:

quit application "Finder"
tell application "System Events" to ¬
set visible of disk "Volatile HD" to false
delay 0.1
launch application "Finder"

And saved it as “File Format: Application” and “Options: Run Only”. The delay line is needed, as without it, finder doesn’t seem to start/reopen its folders/show desktop icons until  you click its icon again in the Dock. You can change the delay to 1, but that was a bit slow for me; tried a delay of 0.0001 too, but that gave the same issue as not putting in a delay line in at all.

You can just download the script/application here.

Drag the application to the Application folder, and add a start up item for it (System Preferences -> Accounts -> YOU -> Login Items; click the +-button and browse till you find your application). Should do the trick.

I also changed the ramfs disk size to 128Mb instead of 256Mb, as 256Mb seemed a lot for a disk that was using ~10Mb.

And I didn't even pick the SSD :(

Update:

With my education discount... Not much better :(

1. Get Fraps, record whatever you want
2. Get XviD4PSP (freeware) & install
3. Import your avi files recorded using Fraps into XviD4PSP (drag & drop)
4. Pick the encoding you want on the left. x264 q21 DXVA-SD-Insane seemed to be an acceptable quality.
5. Click enqueue (and repeat 3->5 for multiple files)
6. Click encode
7. ... wait ...
8. This will create .mp4 files; transfer those to your Mac
9. Open iMovie, File -> Import -> Movies -> select the mp4 files
10. ... wait ... A couple of hours
11. Your movie should now be in iMovie, and you should be able to edit it
12. Edit whatever you want to edit, share and export and have fun.

Took me quite some time before I managed to do it, but hey, now I know… ;)

Syncing smart playlists, with “live updating” checked, bugged the playlists on the iPhone (there were songs in the playlist that didn’t belong there). Hoping this bug would be fixed ASAP I tried to ignore it as long as possible… However, it so far hasn’t been fixed.

As I was pretty fed up with unchecking “live updating” for 6 playlists eachtime I synced my iPhone, I tried to play around and find a fix.

Apparently, adding the following rule, solves the issue (don’t ask me why though):

“Playlist - is - Music.”

Add this to all your smart playlists, resync, and your issue should be solved. Don’t forget to check on “live updating” again. ;)

Media kind is music didn’t affect the issue, however, this was an old rule that was already added to avoid getting podcasts into my smart playlists.

Also, if anyone can tell me how to reduce the memory usage of iTunes 9 (using 900+ Mb, coverflow enabled). The only useful work around is either disable cover flow or to put iTunes into Mini Player (shift+Apple+M)…

Too big to be mobile, missing too many key features to be useful.

Actually, I guess Gizmodo said it all.

And besides that, no iPhone OS 4? No working iTunes? Anything truly useful?

What?!?!?!

#!/bin/bash
KEY=YourApiKey
HOST=zero.rootspirit.com
ping -c 1 $HOST   &>/dev/null
if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
curl -k -s "https://prowl.weks.net/publicapi/add?apikey=$KEY&application=Server%20Connectivity%20Failure&event=&description=$HOST&priority=2"
fi

Of course, change KEY to your API key, HOST to the IP or DNS of the server it should ping. Also, make sure, that when pinging on your host where you’ll run the bash script on, a non-existing domain actually returns:

ping: unknown host ezfzigjagaqg.reg

instead of

PING ezfzigjagaqg.reg.rootspirit.com (85.12.6.130) 56(84) bytes of data.

(Should depend on the search line in /etc/resolv.conf) As I’m pinging about 6 servers I created the file “checkServers.sh” with this content:

#!/bin/bash

`/home/yeri/prowl/zero.rootspirit.com.sh &>/dev/null`
`/home/yeri/prowl/one.rootspirit.com.sh &>/dev/null`
`/home/yeri/prowl/two.rootspirit.com.sh &>/dev/null`
`/home/yeri/prowl/four.rootspirit.com.sh &>/dev/null`
`/home/yeri/prowl/vm0.rootspirit.com.sh &>/dev/null`
`/home/yeri/prowl/vm1.rootspirit.com.sh &>/dev/null`

Make sure to chmod +x *.sh, to make it executable, and edit crontab and add something like that:

*/10	*	*	*	*	/home/yeri/prowl/checkServers.sh &>/dev/null

Don’t forget to test it whether it works or not (try non-existing domain(s), and run the script again).

I'm using Mac OS X (Leopard) as client, and a Gentoo server as server/host.

I both tried Viscosity and Tunnelblick on my Mac as OpenVPN software, and Viscosity is probably somewhat easier to configure (using the GUI), it was shareware. So I ended up using Tunnelblick and it seems to be doing its job quite well.

First of all, make sure Gentoo is set up and working as intended. I used my home router as VPN server (having both eth0 and eth1 (= ppp0).

Using this howto, you'll be able to get the server up and running.

Besides the installation, and perhaps (config) file locations it should be pretty similar on other Linux distros.

As I have dnsmasq running on my server (taking care of DNS) I added the following to the server.conf:

push "dhcp-option DNS 10.0.0.1"
push "redirect-gateway def1"
client-config-dir ccd
route 10.20.30.0 255.255.255.252

Don’t forget to allow DNS requests over tun0 interface in dnsmasq.conf.

The first line tells the server to hand out 10.0.0.1 as DNS server to its connecting clients (10.0.0.1 being the internal eth0 IP of my server).

The 2nd line, tells all clients to route ALL of their traffic through the VPN. I used the VPN to access a website that allowed only Belgian IPs, and I was in The Netherlands at the time I had to access the site (Skynet’s Rock Werchter stream). So I connected through my server at home.

And the 3rd and 4th line are needed if the client access the VPN is on a private IP subnet (like being connected on a WiFi router, using IP 192.168.178.x).

You’ll have to add, in the client-config directory a file per username connecting to the VPN with something similar to this:

iroute 192.168.178.0 255.255.255.0

I’m not entirely sure if you can add multiple iroutes; something I’ll have to figure out when being on a different network.

This is what my client config looks like (vpn-server-name.conf, located in ~/Library/openvpn/):

client
dev tun
proto udp
remote home.tiete.be 9000
resolv-retry infinite
nobind
tun-mtu 1500
tun-mtu-extra 32
mssfix 1200
persist-key
persist-tun
ca "ca.crt"
cert "yeri.crt"
key "yeri.key"
tls-auth "ta.key" 1
comp-lzo
verb 3

Yeri being my username. Don’t forget to download and add the ca.crt, user.crt, user.key (located in /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/) and ta.key (located in /etc/openvpn/) you’ve created on the server.

If your client asks for “directions”, pick 1.

Start up server and client software.

Hitting connect in Tunnelblick should connect you to the VPN server, and (in my case) giving me an IP similar to 10.20.30.6. You can check this using “ifconfig” in Terminal.

Client:

tun0: flags=8851 mtu 1500
    inet 10.20.30.6 --> 10.20.30.5 netmask 0xffffffff
    open (pid 20551)

Server:

tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
inet addr:10.20.30.1  P-t-P:10.20.30.2  Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
RX packets:407595 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:574351 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:27473209 (26.2 MiB)  TX bytes:603524377 (575.5 MiB)

Don’t forget; when using “tun” as driver, your gateway/VPN server will always have the IP ending on .1 (e.g.: 10.20.30.1).

Now, if you want to route all traffic throug the VPN, like I did, you’ll have to change some stuff in iptables (as the server is also acting as my home router, I already did have a few rules in it).

Allow all traffic through tun0 interface:

iptables -A OUTPUT -o tun0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i tun0 -j ACCEPT

Allow traffic through the external port 9000 (UDP):

iptables -A INPUT -i ppp0 -p udp -m udp --dport 9000 -j ACCEPT

Enable forwarding and NAT:

iptables -A FORWARD -s 10.20.30.0/24 -i tun0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -d 10.20.30.0/24 -i ppp0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE

And lastly, as I have Squid running on my server, I want to transparently forward all port 80 requests to the Squid server running on port 8080:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i tun0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080

That’s about it. You should have a running VPN from your current location to your VPN server. And you’re able to use it as a gateway.

You can always traceroute/tracepath to your VPN server (10.20.30.1). It should only find one hop.

06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [JavaAppLauncher Error] CFBundleCopyResourceURL() failed loading MRJApp.properties file
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [JavaAppLauncher Error] CFBundleCopyResourceURL() failed while getting Resource/Java directory
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [LaunchRunner Error] No main class specified
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] [JavaAppLauncher Error] CallStaticVoidMethod() threw an exception
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190] Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]  at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.run(LaunchRunner.java:112)
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]  at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.callMain(LaunchRunner.java:50)
06/11/08 11:34:15 [0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]  at apple.launcher.JavaApplicationLauncher.main(JavaApplicationLauncher.java:61)
06/11/08 11:34:15 com.apple.launchd[97] ([0x0-0x1f01f].net.azib.ipscan[190]) Exited with exit code: 1

After some googling I came upon this website.

Following the (long/first) instructions did solve the problem, and I can now run the application.

Only skipping #9, as I could not find the “CFBundleExecutable”, and simply renaming the old ipscan to ipscan.bak, and renaming JavaApplicationStub to ipscan.

This should help several people who aren't yet privy to this information. Your iPhone or iPod Touch's iTunes backup process (the thing that some people tend to skip) dumps your device's crash logs to a folder in your home directory. Here's how to get to those logs.

DEPENDING ON YOUR OS:

• Mac OS X: <your-home-directory>/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<device-name>/<brightkite-crash-log>

• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user-name>\Application Data\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter\<device-name>\<brightkite-crash-log>

• Windows Vista: C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Roaming\Applecomputer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\<device-name>\<brightkite-crash-log>

If you can't find either of those, the logs should be on your device anyway. If it's jailbroken, your logs can be found under:

• /var/mobile/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/<brightkite-crash-log>

Read the readme for installation howto. :)

Trying the Bootcamp setup wizard, I got the same error as I had before - “Your disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved”.

I tried to Zero-Out-Data, overwriting all deleted data on the disk with 0’s. Yet this did not seem to solve the problem.

After deleting some big files, like my heroes & 24 episodes, I tried again. Still nothing.

I then remembered I had WoW Wrath of the Lich King installed (7ish Gb). Deleting the WoW folder and trying again, did solve the problem. I didn’t even have to zero-out-data again.

So, basicly, deleting big files (folders?!) seems to solve the problem too.

English: Win - Mac

French: Win - Mac

German: Win - Mac

Spanish: Win - Mac

The download is 2.04Gb (on a Mac), I haven’t started the download on a Windows yet.

And yes, you will still need a beta invitation before being able to login!

You’ll find me under Tuinslak or Isazi on the EU beta realm.

As for the character copy, it was done within 10 minutes. Just 5 hours left on the download. :(

Edit: same size on a Windows - 2.04Gb. The download contains the setup.exe and the installer.app, so you should be able to copy it to any OS.

Namely is an app that let’s you launch any application by typing in a few letters of that program’s name. Just type in a key combination ([Apple]+E here), and Namely’s window pop ups.

After a bit of Googling I found that it was possible to hide icons from the dock.

First of all, configure Namely, make sure it pop ups if you type in your key combo. If you don’t do that now, you’ll have problems to configure it later.

Once that’s done, quit Namely.

Then go to the Namely.app folder (using Terminal), and add these 2 lines

LSUIElement
1

between <dict> and </dict>

This is what it should look like:

(Nano is the editor I use, but you can also use vi or vim too, depending what’s installed + you might have Namely installed in a different directory)

Nazgul:~ yeri$ cd /Applications/Utilities/Namely.app/
Nazgul:Namely.app yeri$ nano -w Contents/Info.plist

This is how my Info.plist looks like:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8">
< !DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">


        CFBundleDevelopmentRegion
        English
        CFBundleExecutable
        Namely
        CFBundleIconFile
        Namely
        CFBundleIdentifier
        com.asagoo.namely
        CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion
        6.0
        CFBundlePackageType
        APPL
        CFBundleSignature
        ????
        CFBundleVersion
        2.5.1
        NSMainNibFile
        MainMenu
        NSPrincipalClass
        NamelyApplication
        LSUIElement
        1

Notice line 25 & 26.

And that should be it – double click Namely to start it up, hit your keyboard shortcut, and it should pop up!

No icon in my dock. :)

Makes life just that bit easier!

You’ll need a rsync server, something to backup, and ssh-agent running to ease the process (or, fill in your password each time).

Add the following lines (using a terminal text editor) to a text file (".rsync" for example, hidden files under Unix-like systems), and chmod +x $file.

rsync --archive -uv --exclude-from=/home/you/.rsync_exclude \
--rsh="ssh -p 222" --delete --stats --progress /Users/you/Documents/ \
you@remost.host.com:/home/you/remote-backup-directory

This will upload any files in /Users/you/Documents to /home/you/remote-backup-directory.

It will use ssh on port 222 to transfer the files.

Just execute ./.rsync (if that’s the name of your file) to run it.

If you make any changes (locally), and run this, the changes will be applied on the remote server (e.g. file changes, renames, deletes, …) – this will delete files on the remote server if you’ve deleted them locally!

The file .rsync_exclude is optional, it includes all files or directories that should NOT be uploaded

This is what I have in my .rsync_exclude:

Nazgul:~ yeri$ cat .rsync_exclude
Parallels/*

Simple as hell, and yet so handy!

Nazgul:hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-osx yeri$ ./hamachi start
25 19:08:15.659 [   0] [14306] tap: connect() failed 2 (No such file or directory)

So I guess I’ll have to wait for a fix after all. :(

$date com.apple.launchd[1] (tuncfgd$pid) posix_spawnp("/usr/sbin/tuncfg", ...):
No such file or directory
$date com.apple.launchd[1] (tuncfgd$pid) Exited with exit code: 1
$date com.apple.launchd[1] (tuncfgd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

tun is (trying) to restart every 10 (!) seconds. I tried updating Hamachi’s tun/tap drivers, without any success. It kept restarting the process every 10 seconds.

After a bit of Googling, it seemed to be a known problem. So I decided to uninstall Hamachi & the tun/tap drivers.

sudo rm -r /usr/bin/hamachi
sudo rm -r  /usr/bin/hamachi-init
sudo rm -r  /usr/sbin/tuncfg
sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tuncfgd.plist
sudo rm -r /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/tuncfgd.plist
sudo rm -r /Applications/HamachiX

This should solve the restarting problem. You might want to reboot to be sure.

When uninstalling the drivers, HamachiX will be gone; there will be no way to use it. You can decide to ignore the spawning-processes, and keep using Hamachi as-is, but the spawning processes might slow down your computer. But HamachiX should work (although it often crashed here).

I tried reinstalling the tun/tap drivers, but the same happens. I guess I’ll have to wait for a fix. :(

On the other side, I’ve tried the console version of Hamachi (so no HamachiX) which seems to be working fine (so far). Just missing out on the handy GUI. Edit

A 355 Mb patch, downloaded over poor UMTS/3G at school and in the train… Took a while, but it’s finally installed.

Some nice few features, like the fact you can now remove the semi-transparent effect on the menu bar (makes it nicer). They also added some nice stacks enhancements.

A Time Machine icon is added in the menu bar too, just too bad you can’t make it just pop-up when it is actually backing up. I like keeping my menu bar clean. ;)

And well, a lot more bug fixes, but haven’t noticed any of them, besides perhaps iCal that for some reason hides appointments, as if they were deleted. After changing weeks/refreshing the page, if reappears… (most iCal bugs were fixed in patch 15.1 for me)

The only thing they haven’t fixed is the Workgroup problem… Still can’t join one. If forgets the name of the workgroup I’ve entered when I close the window… Yes, there are some workarounds, like copying the network-location and so on, but I haven’t tried yet.

But hey, I’m glad with this. :)

No big changes, but I hope Leopard’s bugs are fixed now

The cool thing is, you can easily record films or TV episodes with it, but with this version, there is no way to export it to a iMovie project, or to play the recording in a QuickTime based application.

When recording, it creates a folder “Live Recording - $date $time.eyetv”. And when double clicking it, it will open EyeTV.

Now if you would go into that folder (rather than opening it), for example with Terminal, you would see four files.

Nazgul:Desktop yeri$ cd Live\ Recording\ -\ 31-01-2008\ 21_54.eyetv/
Nazgul:Live Recording - 31-01-2008 21_54.eyetv yeri$ ls -ls
total 1515968173
6 -rw-r--r--  1 yeri  yeri     886080 Jan 31 22:08 000000000d526cf1.eyetvi
8 -rw-r--r--  1 yeri  yeri       1137 Jan 31 22:08 000000000d526cf1.eyetvp
8 -rw-r--r--  1 yeri  yeri       1950 Jan 31 23:48 000000000d526cf1.eyetvr
1514216 -rw-r--r--  1 yeri  yeri  775275716 Jan 31 22:08 000000000d526cf1.mpg

The only important file is the .mpg file. You can open it with QuickTime, but you won’t have any sound.

To move your .mpg file to, e.g., your Movies directory, use (change $You with your username):

Nazgul:Live Recording - 21_54.eyetv yeri$ mv *.mpg /Users/$You/Movies/

The only player that plays the file correctly is VLC. No way to import it in iMovie, edit it, or share it. But, have no fear, there’s a workaround using ffmpegX. Download and install it (follow the instructions on the website, you’ll need to install 3 extra binaries too).

When installed, open the program, import the .mpg file, and export it to, for example, a .mov (-mpeg4) file.

Converting might take a while.

All you then have to do, is to import it in iMovie.

Follow the steps on the screen. iMovie will ask you a few things, and then you’ll be ready to edit your recording!

With iMovie ‘08, you can even directly share your records on YouTube, cool stuff!

And if you think “well, cool, but won’t happen, a normal connector won’t break your notebook” you’re very wrong.

A few months ago, at school, during courses, someone tripped over my Powerbook’s power cord, and pulled everything off the table. This resulted in complete data loss + broken adapter + banana-looking case; 926 EUR repairing costs (Yes, this is when I dediced the get myself a Macbook (Pro), and the good thing was that Leopard was about to be released).

And today, at school again, MagSafe proved itself for the first real time. Someone again tripped over my power cord, and pop, all that fell on the ground was the power cable.

I must honestly say, the power infrastructure at school is terrible, we have tons of cables going to one power hub, and I haven’t been the first victim to such brutal hardware murder.

Anyway, the big downside of the MagSafe adapter, is the fact it’s patented… Apple has only released (some lame) plane adapter (it won’t even charge your Macbook)… Nothing for in the car.

The only alternative I’ve found on the web, was this. But look at the prices… Ridiculous!

So I’ve been searching on eBay for some alternative, I’ve seen some home-made adapters, but nothing I really trusted.

Because I still had my old Kensington Powerbook-car-charger, I tried to find some connector that would fit. No luck on the official pages.

This is when I came across weaudio. They were selling Kensington car adapters, with a home-made MagSafe switch. (Basicly, one ends fits in your Kensington adapter, the other end is what is left of an old MagSafe power cable.)

I’ve mailed the man, if it would be possible to sell just the MagSafe cable + Kensington-to-MagSafe switch; and guess what!

This morning, after a small week of patiently waiting for my item to arrive, i finally have it.

I’ve tested it, and so far my battery hasn’t blown up, it gets the juice from my car, and it even charges (although it’s only 70W)! This all for 30$ (including shipping costs from Hong Kong).

Eat that, Apple! ;)

Here are some pictures:

Before trying to run Vista/Bootcamp through Parallels again, I’m waiting till the end of my exams (Thursday). Don’t want to blow up my Windows install again when I’m in desperate need of it. ;)

As usual with Parallels, creating/installing a new OS isn’t easy. Wether it crashes or you get a bunch of errors, you’re always up for a day full of fun!

Here is how I managed to install Ubuntu on Parallels:

• First of all, make sure you're running the latest version of Parallels, especially if you're using Leopard.
• Step 2, download the alternate Ubuntu installer. If you do not use the alternate installer, you'll end up with 'Display server errors' before being able to install Ubuntu. You can download Ubuntu here. Select the approriate version (probably Desktop, latest version), and check "Check here if you need the alternate desktop CD. This CD does not include the Live CD, instead it uses a text-based installer".
• Step 3, create a new virtual machine, with OS Linux/Ubuntu.

• And follow the steps. I've added some more screenshots below. You can leave everything by default, that's as you wish.

• As CD-drive, select the Ubuntu (alternate) installer .iso-file.

• Click Finish and Start -- the Ubuntu installer will boot.
• You'll end up in Ubuntu's welcome screen. Select your keyboard layout (hit F3) and select (text) install
• Here too, follow the steps on the screen. It will ask for your language, country, and will propose a manual or automatic disk partition. I've selected automatic -- it creates a big ext3 root partition, and a swap partition. The installer then asks if you agree with the partition table. Select Yes or No. (I've selected No - changed my root partition from ext3 to reiserfs, as I'm a big reiserfs fan.) When selecting Yes -- the table will be created and Ubuntu will start installing.
• After it's installed, Ubuntu will reboot. This is where you'll get your first error; ACPI: Unable to locate RSDP. This is a known error; you can safey ignore it.
• Ubuntu will continue to boot, and then pop up this error: The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds, and will freeze. To fix this error, shut down and restart (or reset) the VM, and hit the ESC-key. Grub's bootloader menu will pop up if everything is right.
• Select the 2nd option (recovery). Ubuntu will boot up in text-mode-only and you should be logged in as root (if you're not, add 'sudo' in front of the commands below).
• In Parallels, click (on top of your screen) "Actions" -> "Install Parallels Tools..." and type in following commands in the shell:
  • mount /media/cdrom
  • cd /media/cdrom
  • ./parallels-tools.run
  • reboot
• After Ubuntu has rebooted (in normal mode), you shouldn't receive any more errors, and you can enjoy Ubuntu on your mac!

Nick, one of the posters, wrote an article I totally agree with. It really reflects why I’m using Mac instead of Windows now.

Read about it here (Dutch), or here (Google translated, far from understandable)

It converts decimal IP’s into binary or hexadecimal IP’s (and, the other way around too); it gives you the IP class; it calculates subnets, with the number of hosts/subnet, and gives you the number of host bits; and many more!

Shiny tool to quickly do subnet calculations. Has proven it’s use when doing the Cisco CCNA tests. ;)

As I’m owning a Macbook Pro (with Leopard) that shouldn’t have to be any problem using Bootcamp.

I created a 5 Gb partition and installed WinXP a few weeks ago. So far all fine.

As I don’t really like to reboot into XP (I can’t access my mails, don’t have my IRC client, all my Camino tabs are closed, …) I tried Parallels.

Parallels, at first, was a real disappointment. It crashed my Mac OS X several times. It was only, just a few days later, when they released a patch to solve all Leopard issues, that I started to enjoy it.

Running all my programs from Parallels (instead of rebooting), I never noticed my Bootcamp WinXP was actually broken. As exams were approaching (I’m not allowed to run a virtualization of Windows, because my school’s key and network loggers won’t work like intended, not that I care that much, but they do ;) ), I rebooted for the first time in weeks to my Bootcamp XP, and noticed the famous hal.dll error (or Google it, you’ll see why it’s famous).

I repaired my Windows XP install (as explained in Parallels’ knowledge base), and that indeed fixed the problem… of Bootcamp… My parallels was now broken (hal.dll error for Parallels, instead of Bootcamp). Trying to recreate a new Parallels virtual disk for bootcamp, or even reinstall the program, … All failed. (There should be bootflags to edit, and force Parallels to use a different hal.dll, well, read about it here, it’s no longer useful for me.)

Googling and searching their forums, no luck, no one had a fixed solution. Only ’try this’ and ’try that’. (To follow the above howto I’ve posted, you need to be able to (re)install Parallels, and by the time I found that howto I wasn’t even able to do that; Parallels froze during installation.) I e-mailed the Parallels support team with my problem, and the form said they’d reply within 3 working days… It has been over 2 weeks, and I’m still waiting.

I then noticed that my Mac/Apple keyboard driver weren’t working in Bootcamp-XP, some chars like #, @, > and so forth weren’t working (or at least the layout didn’t match with my Apple keyboard). I tried to reinstall the Bootcamp drivers (located on my Leopard DVD), they all failed to install (no error message…). Being quite fed up with it, I decided to reinstall XP (without formatting, just overwriting my Windows dir). And here too, the drivers failed to install, with no specific error message… Took the required backups, formatted, and had the wild idea to install Vista.

Booted from the Vista install DVD, and came to the conclusion I needed at least 7 Gb disk space to install Vista (having a 5 Gb partition, this wouldn’t work). Back in os X I deleted the Windows partition, and tried to recreate a new (10 Gb) one.

And… This error came up: “Your disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved” (other link). I now started to panic, as I had less then a week to fix this problem. Following a few try-this-and-try-that’s, I removed a few big files from my disk (someone even said to remove Office 2004, but I wasn’t about to do that), I tried to repair my disk (from the Leopard DVD), I tried smaller partitions, even 5 Gb wouldn’t work, and then, when all hope was almost lost, I tried one last thing; ‘Zero Out Data’. This will overwrite all deleted files (well, marked for deletion by your disk, but still written on it, so this data can theoretically be recovered) with zero’s.

And this too, has to be done from the Mac OS X install CD/DVD.

After, well, about 40 minutes Disk Utility was done, I rebooted right into Leopard, and retried to create a 5 Gb partition… And guess what?! It worked!

I deleted that partition again (5 Gb being to small), and recreated a 15 Gb partition, and this too worked with no problems.

I now happily run Vista on my Macbook Pro, and so far I can’t complain.

The only thing I haven’t been able to fix is Parallels, I can’t even reinstall it (it freezes during install). But heck with it, I’ve lost enough sweat already to fix Bootcamp.