May 22, 2004
DVD copy
While I still have to finish my HOW-TO on duplicating DVDs (hmm), this product struck my attention: Fast DVD Copy.
An all-in-one-one-click commercial app that duplicates your personal DVDs - and commercial ones for that matter - switched them to region free (and presumably disables Macrovision).
For USD 99, version 2 allows you to select the bonus you want - or don't want for that matter. The previous version duplicated the lot, limiting to a maximum of 97 minutes the movies it could copy. Apparently, this has been addressed in the latest version.
Beware of the licensing scheme - install it on the computer that will be used to duplicate:
Your license is valid for one computer only. If you want to install Fast DVD Copy on a second Mac, you need to buy a second license.In addition, your Fast DVD Copy license is computer-specific. Your serial number will only work on the Mac that you licensed it for.
10:52 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
HFS+ Fragmentation
Remember the days when we use to defrag our disks with Norton SpeedDisk? When was the last time you defragged under Mac OS X? No need to thanks to Mac OS X built-in measures against fragmentation?
Learn more about the topic by reading Amit Singh's "Fragmentation on HFS+ Volumes" on kernelthread.com.
Defragmentation on HFS+ volumes should not be necessary at all, or worthwhile, in most cases because the system seems to do a very good job of avoiding/countering fragmentation.
It is risky to defragment anyway: What if there's a power glitch? What if the system crashes? What if the defragmenting tool has a bug? What if you inadvertently reboot? In some cases, you could make the situation worse by defragmenting.
10:40 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Mail.app Junk Mail Filter
O'Reilly's part two gives interesting information on what Junk Mail Filter is, and isn't. A good read for anyone using Mail.app
The Fight Against Spam, Part 2
Interestingly enough, the technology that underlies the Junk Mail filter began its life as an information retrieval system, developed in the Apple labs to help users who managed thousands or millions of large documents find the one they were looking for easily. In order to do that, this technology had to allow users to perform a search by topic.
10:26 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
iChat TV
Simon Thornton presents an interesting idea on his weblog ("a mutual misunderstanding"): connect a DV input device to your Mac and make iChat believe it's a firewire cam ..
Sending Live Television Via iChat
In other, shorter, easier, words: you can use your converter box to stream live video from something - oooh, let's just say your Sky Digibox for example - to someone else using iChat anywhere else in the world. If you happened to have one of the outputs of your Sky box (it has two) connected up to the inputs of your converter box, you might see how this could work.
10:17 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 12, 2004
iSight power drain
There really is a power drain problem with Apple's superb iSight camera.
I switched to a larger external firewire drive earlier this year, and after my loyal 6Gb VST (SmartDisk now), 20Gb iPod (G2), 20Gb LaCie 'DataBank', I'm walking around with a 40Gb LaCie 'by F.A. Porsche' .
I use it mainly for synchronising my e-mail, bookmarks, preferences, and current work between my desktop and PowerBook, so the amount of data that is transferred each time is now tremendous as I sync twice a day. Nevertheless, I've been copying large files (7Gb+) recently which all caused my desktop Mac to lockup. It wasn't a crash per se, but a number of warnings and errors started to appear in the system logs which lead to the freeze of the GUI with a kernel load of 99.9%. This situation occurred each time I tried to copy those large files, or loads of small ones (20'000+).
My first thought was to incriminate the system, as the external drive worked fine on my other desktop Mac and PowerBook. I explored all sorts of solutions, ending up by a complete OS reinstall. But to no avail - the problem didn't disappear - until I realised that my iSight and the LaCie drive were both plugged into the motherboard Firewire connectors - which was the only difference between that Mac and the two others.
Unplugging the drive during a freeze resolved the problem. The load drops, the system generates an error, but you regain control of your Mac. Apparently, the iSight drains power on both ports, leaving the second one underpowered.
At least for the 'F.A. Porsche' LaCie. I never had that problem with the 'DataBank' (which only offers one firewire connector, against two for the 'F.A. Porsche' - which was what decided me for the model over the 40Gb 'DataBank'.
This problem is evoked on Apple Discussions in various threads. I should have known.
So, I sorted that mess out by adding a Belkin Firewire PCI card to my desktop Mac. Everyone is happy. Everyone is powered.
07:42 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 22, 2004
Downgrading to Airport 3.3.1
If you're experiencing problems after upgrading to Airport 3.4, typically loss of signal strength and disconnection, you'll find instructions on how to downgrade at,
http://homepage.mac.com/fishsun/articles/uninstall_airport34.htm
More info and discussions on,
I didn't manage to upgrade to Airport 3.3.1 after reinstalling 3.1. xlr8yourmac has several workarounds. The first one worked for me.
11:12 PM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 08, 2004
MP3Concept (MP3Virus.Gen)
Well, believe it or not, this afternoon at 16:15 CET Intego publishes a press release announcing the launch of a Mac OS X Trojan Horse, just after my copy of VirusBarrier popped up with this alert around 15:50 CET:
My definitions were updated this morning by NetUpdate adding the ability to detect MP3 Concept.
I immediately checked the net for more in fo, but was unable to find anything before this evening. But when I write these lines, the CIAC, McAfee, Sophos or Symantec don't mention it. Even Google didn't turn up anything..
MacNN and Slashdot have a post, but the info remains sparse and unconfirmed.
The alert was triggered when I launched BBEdit, and was reproducable once eventhough I clicked 'Repair' on the VirusBarrier alert dialog box. No MP3 files in my case..
Here's a copy of the e-mail alert:
Date: 04/08/2004 15:50:35 Europe/Zurich +0200
File: /.vol/234881033/2656577
Virus: MP3Virus.Gen
Date: 04/08/2004 15:50:52 Europe/Zurich +0200
File: /.vol/234881033/930750
Virus: MP3Virus.Gen
It's actually the first time I've seen it work
:/
Continue reading "MP3Concept (MP3Virus.Gen)"
11:45 PM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (3)
April 07, 2004
Boost Mail.app's junk mail filtering
The other discovery of the day: JunkMatcher
A set of scripts that can be added to Mail.app rules. It uses various effective techniques such as IP-based filtering, and flexible regular expressions to identify junk mails, and comes with a GUI front end which enables you to analyse what's going on and tweak it efficency. You can even report spam to SpamCop.net directly from the log window.
There's a clip on the product's website that shows it in action.
09:12 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Horizontal scroll built in Mac OS X
Have you tried the latest Microsoft Wireless Optical mouse ? What interested me to try was the new scroll wheel, which gives you the smoothest scroll I have ever experienced, and the possibility to scroll horizontally by tilting the scroll wheel to the left or right.
The scroll experience is awesome, unfortunately the ergonomic design of the mouse gaves me cramps in the wrist, and the horizontal scroll required the Microsoft driver to be installed.
:(
But I discovered quite by accident this morning that horizontal scrolling is built in Mac OS X. (for as long as you own a scroll wheel mouse)
Hold the shift key down while using your scroll wheel, and the content scrolls horizontally.
This is not new. MacOSXHints published this hint back in October 2003 - but I was quite pleased to stumble upon it by accident!
09:01 AM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 04, 2004
Safari not supported by GMail
Google's new free e-mail service, GMail, doesn't support Safari (yet). You get 1Gb free storage with Google's search engine (Don't sort, search).
Among the notable features, you'll find,
- Select a message and all relate message are highlighted (threads, replies)
- Customisable spam filter
- No popups, no ads - but relevant text-ads à la Google ..
The service is still in beta, and widely available, and English is the only language available at the time of writing.
What should we think about this new service? After indexing the web, usenet, weblogs (Blogger), Google will track our e-mail content..
:/
PS: noticed today's cool date? 04-04-04
09:03 PM in FYI | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)