Archive for November, 2006

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How to report bugs

Thursday, November 30th, 2006

Apple has a Developer article on Bug Reporting Best Practices

which includes tips for writing meaningful descriptions, and individual tips for more detailed reporting of bugs in Xcode, Java, Safari, Mail, iChat, Audio, USB/Firewire Ports/Drives, AirPort, iPod, iDVD. The information was also presented at a WWDC session this year (I was at another session at the time).
Interesting tips include using

sample (Application Name) 15

to ’sample’ hung applications.

There are also instructions for turning on more bug reporting in iChat and Mail.App.

Posted in Apple, Hardware, Java on Mac OS X, Mac, Software, WWDC, iPod | No Comments »

MacTalk edition #1 available as PDF

Thursday, November 30th, 2006

I saw my first copy of Australian Mac magazine MacTalk today, and it looks pretty promising. Articles include from photography (”Clearing up Depth of Field”), podcasting (”Podcasting in the Real World”), programming (”Build Core Data Applications”), software and Mac culture.

If you want to have a look the PDF is available for download.

Posted in Apple, Books, Mac, iPod, iTunes | No Comments »

Foof!

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Looking for a bag for your laptop, camera, Mac, iBook, PowerBook, etc?

Check out the foof site for products that are “handmade ethically in Australia”

Posted in Apple, Hardware, Mac, iPod | No Comments »

Speaking of keynotes

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Steve Jobs’ MacWorld 2007 keynote is scheduled for January 9th.

Interestingly, MacWorld now includes an auto show to show off all those cars that are really just expensive iPod accessories, and also apparently, John Lennon’s bus.

Posted in Apple, Hardware, Mac, iPod | No Comments »

Behind the Stevenote

Tuesday, November 28th, 2006

I was just reminded about this article about what it’s like to work on preparation for a Steve Jobs keynote.

I’ve certainly had friends who were afraid to answer their mobile phones on the weekend before the Stevenote as it meant something might have broken and they might have to go in and fix it.

Posted in Apple, Hardware, Mac, WWDC, iPod | No Comments »

Command of the week

Monday, November 27th, 2006

So, you’ve got 20+ clients who’ve flown in from interstate for training and you’ve discovered that all the machines they’re using have the annoying access control lists turned on (ie you do an “ls -l” in the terminal and you see the “+” sign in a left hand column. You can do “ls -e” for more file acl info.), which is probably stopping things working as expected.

The magic command to turn acl’s off on Mac OS X is

sudo fsaclctl -a -d /

If you’re trying to remember the command, presumably fsaclctl stands for “File System Access Control List ConTroL”

Posted in Apple, Mac, Mac OS X Server, Software | No Comments »

Technote updates

Monday, November 27th, 2006

If you’re exporting to Mobile MP4 3GPP from QuickTime Pro, you can only export the Title, Author, Copyright and Description.

Posted in Apple, QuickTime | No Comments »

Aeroplane iPod integration

Sunday, November 26th, 2006

Not content with plugging your iPod into a mere BMW? Now you can plug it into a much more expensive aeroplane.Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United passengers will from mid 2007 provide power and video input for iPods to the in-flight seat-back display.
Apple say they are also working with Panasonic Avionics (who according to the Wikipedia are the world’s largest supplier of in-flight entertainment systems) to add the system to more carriers. Panasonic Avionics provides equipment to both Boeing and Airbus.

Posted in Apple, Hardware, iPod | No Comments »

Open this file to kernel panic your Mac

Saturday, November 25th, 2006

Are you feeling lucky?. Note this may kernel panic your Mac if Safari opens the disk image immediately after it downloads it. Of course, who knows, it may do something even nastier first.

More information on the exploit here.

Posted in Apple, Mac, Security | No Comments »

Commandline for erasing DVD-RW discs

Friday, November 24th, 2006

I was trying to erase my DVD-RW disk in Disk Utility, and every time it had finished erasing it (either in Quick or normal mode), the disk would mount again with the same data visible.

A bit of poking around on the commandline revealed the optical disk cousin of hdiutil, namely drutil. So from the commandline you can do

drutil erase full

to erase a DVD-RW disk (I’d guess it works for CD-RW discs too). You then have to wait of course for it to blank all of the disk of course, but at least it’s actually erased so you can then re-burn it.

You could of course try 

drutil erase quick

first.

Also supported are 

drutil bulkerase full

or quick for erasing lots of disks.

Posted in Apple, Mac, Software | No Comments »

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