MacPinoy

Leopard and Skype problems

I’ve been having problems with Skype under Leopard.  Basically, it won’t launch.  I would re-install it and then it would run fine.  But after that first launch and I try to re-launch it again, the problem is back and I can’t launch Skype.

After searching through the web, there seems to be an explanation.  Now whether Leopard or Skype is the culprit is not subject to debate.

From this forum post, it appears that Leopard’s firewall remembers the structure of an application and creates a digital signature based on this.  Change the structure and the digital signature changes.  If the digital signature changes, then the application cannot run.

OS X 10.5 now digitally signs all applications. The first time you run the app OS X will confirm that you want to run the app downloaded from the internet and will apply a digital signature to the app.

If the digital signature of the app changes (by even one byte) the app will no longer run as it no longer matches the signature originally approved. OS X will prevent it from running. If Skype is making ANY change inside the /Applications/Skype.app bundle when it runs it would cause this issue.

Ars Technica has more details.  Go to the section on “Code Signing.”

Code signing also means an end to the practice of applications modifying themselves (e.g., saving custom theme files inside the application bundle itself rather than in ~/Library/Application Support/MyApp or another user-specific location). This practice has always been discouraged by Apple, and now there’s another reason avoid it.

Well, at least the problem has been identified.  If you ask me, programmers should adhere to the strategy of Apple.  If the application does modify itself, then how can one validate if it is a legitimate modification or that of a virus or malware?

So is the problem caused by Apple’s firewall or is it because the application is poorly programmed?

Day 4: Back to my Mac

I have two Macs at home. One is the family Mac Mini which utilizes my old LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse from my Windows days. The family PC had conked out and I had purchased the Mac Mini instead of re-installing a fresh Windows OS because I was sick and tired of all the problems caused by the teens in the house downloading whatever program they would find and clicking on whatever banner they see. The second is my Mac Book Pro which I bring with me. This two Mac setup configuration also gave me the chance to try out Leopard’s Back to my Mac feature.

So I gave it a try.  I logged on to my .Mac account on both Macs, setup the sharing preferences to ensure that screen sharing and file sharing are on.  I am now in an internet cafe near my office with my MBP and my Mac Mini is on at home.  Unfortunately, I could not see my Mac Mini in the Finder window.  Sheesh.

I checked Apple’s docs.  This one told me that, if I had a third party router, I had to “manually enable UPnP or NAT-PMP.”  I checked out several threads in the Apple discussion forums, and many are complaining about their problems setting up B2MM.  Check this and this. Well, guess this feature isn’t as intuitive as the rest of the features and will probably fail the “granny test.”

I also stumbled upon this site and their recommendation to not use Back to my Mac because of what it calls a security hole. Apparently, if you have two Leopard machines—the “server” machine, which you want to control; and the “client” machine, the one that will do the controlling—both signed on using the same .Mac account, you can control the “server” machine without the benefit of providing the “server” machine’s ID and password. I believe that to call this a security hole is an exagerration. I believe that this is how it supposed to be designed. I don’t want to remember another ID-password combination.

Anyway, I’ll give it a try again tomorrow.

Day 3: Spaces

I was not a fan of virtual desktops. I found it eye-candy. But then I realized that, as I became more and more impatient of application load times and memory became cheaper and cheaper, I would end up with more than a handful of applications open. Normally I would have the following open: iTunes (to like to listen to music), Skype, Adium, Yojimbo, Lightroom, EyeTV (sometimes I want to see what’s on the tube), a browser (Firefox, Safari, Camino, or sometimes all three), Skitch, Thunderbird. I know Expose can help me locate the application, but I am now at a phase where I want the see less clutter and less distraction.

Enter Spaces.

Spaces allows you to assign specific applications to virtual desktops.  I have, for example, assigned all chat clients into one space.  Adobe Lightroom has its own space. I also like to write with little distraction so Pages has its own space.  All it takes then is to use Ctrl+arrow keys to cycle between all the spaces.  There is practically no wait time—the spaces display themselves instantaneously.

Actually, the term “Spaces” is the best way to describe this new Leopard feature.  It appears that you have a huge monitor and you have just configured your computer to display a part of it.  In my setup (which is displayed above), I have four “spaces”—so I can best describe my setup as having a “virtual monitor” that is four-times my current monitor and I am just displaying one-fourth of this “virtual monitor.”  Using the Ctrl+left arrow, I can see what’s on the “left” of my “virtual monitor.”  Using the Ctrl+down arrow, I can see what’s “below” my “virtual monitor.”

Now, some people (like the ones in Gizmodo) are comparing Spaces with Expose.  I believe that both serve a different purpose.  Expose is about locating what application you have open.  Spaces is about reducing clutter and distraction.  I know that one can simply minimize the applications to reduce what is being displayed on-screen, but Spaces reduces clutter far more efficiently.

Day 2: Restoring from Time Machine

Yesterday I put Time Machine to the test—can it do a full restore assuming a hard disk crash?

Ok, I didn’t actually crash my hard disk, but I decided to repartition my Mac Book Pro hard disk and reduce the space allocated for my Windows Boot Camp partition. Originally, I assumed that I would be switching back-and-forth to Windows, so I partitioned my 120GB HD with 70GB for Mac and 50GB for Windows. I found myself rarely going back to Windows. A waste of disk space, I told myself, so I decided to allocate a smaller 30GB partition to Windows.

The first thing that I did was to use Carbon Copy Cloner and clone my Leopard drive onto the external drive. I needed a backup plan in case TM does not do its job.

Next, I tested the clone by booting off the external drive. So far, so good.

I then launched Disk Utility and repartitioned my hard disk.Since I had time to spare, I decided to use CCC and restore Leopard from the external drive back to my MBP hard disk. No problems with the cloning, but after I booted back to Leopard on my MBP (I disconnected all external drives, including the TM backup drive), I found that the response time was horrifically slow. I don’t know what was causing it but I noticed that Spotlight was busy “indexing files.” The Activity Monitor was showing that CPU was running at a high 90 percent.

Anyway, at least I could boot back into Leopard using the CCC method. So I decided to try out the Time Machine method.  I consulted the Help Documentation:

I did as instructed—I popped in the Leopard Install disk, clicked install, clicked Restore System From Backup from the Utilities option.  I was presented with a list of dates and times which corresponded to the TM backup times.  I selected the version before I began to whole CCC cloning process.  After that I took a nap and when I woke up, there was a pop-up informing me that the restoration process has been completed.  No entering of serial code.  No selecting of keyboard or time zones.  I rebooted my MBP and Leopard was up and running.

One thing though.  Spotlight was still “re-indexing files.”  I am not sure if that is a consequence of restoring from a backup or a consequence of increasing hard disk size.

Day 1: Time Machine

I was fascinated about Time Machine. Walt Mossberg has already dubbed it as the marquee function of Leopard. I tend to agree, mainly because backing up a computer is one of the most essential processes, yet it is one of the least executed.

Backing up a machine can be an arduous task—it’s long, it slows down the machine, and it can be complicated. Time Machine takes all this out. It is truly the “Backup for Dummies!”All you have to do is to plug in an external hard drive and launch Time Machine. Time Machine will automatically detect the external drive and ask you if you want to make this external drive as your backup drive. Once that is done, Time Machine proceeds to first copy all your files into the backup drive and then it backs up the changed files on an hourly basis. It is basically a “start-and-forget” process—you start Time Machine and you wouldn’t even notice that it is backing up your machine! Do you want to locate a file that you know existed yesterday? You can flip then flip through the backup versions hour by hour! How far back you can save? Apparently it is limited by the size of your external backup disk. Once the disk is full, Time Machine supposedly alerts you that it will start deleting previous backups, oldest first. But before it deletes any backup, Time Machine supposedly copies files that might be needed to fully restore your disk for every remaining backup. One thing that I want to test is the claim that multiple Macs can share one Time Machine drive. But the acid test will be a full restore after a hard disk crash. Personally, slick as Time Machine appears to be, I will take the plunge and simulate a full restore only after I have successfully cloned my machine. According to the developers, Super Duper is not yet fully compatible, but according to Macworld, Carbon Copy Cloner appears to be compatible. This may be the chance for me to reduce the Windows partition I setup for Boot Camp, which I rarely use nowadays.

Day 0: Leopard Installed

After the successful backup of my Tiger OS, I began to install Leopard.  Among the many installation options, I decided to bite the bullet and chose the Upgrade option, despite the many people advising to do a clean install (i.e., Erase and Install option).

It took about 1.5 hours to complete the installation process.   After which I was greeted with a new splash screen and Leopard was up and running!  I experienced none of the reported “blue screen of death” that was in the news.  If anyone else does experience the BSOD, Apple posted some recommendations, which is basically do a reinstall and choose the Archive and Install option.

First thing I did was to run Software Update and I was prompted to update my Keychain application.  Apple documentation mentioned that this upgrade addresses a few issues, including  logging in with an account originally created in Mac OS X 10.1 or earlier that has a password of 8 or more characters, connecting to some 802.11b/g wireless networks, and changing the password of a FileVault-protected account.

Next up was to run Appfresh.  I was then treated with the first of Leopard’s incompatibility issues—Appfresh would crash.   Bitcontrol seems to also experience the same problem

Quicksilver seems to be working fine, but I still downloaded and installed the recommended upgrade.

Lightroom seems to be running fine, but I still have to perform some operations (as documented in the Adobe blog) that would trigger the problems.

Elgato’s EyeTV is working fine, though it did ask me to perform an update as well.  I am not sure if the update had anything to do with Leopard.

So far so good.  Now to try Time Machine….

Day -1: Preparing for Leopard

The folks at iStudio sent me an SMS last night informing me that Leopard is now available to be picked up.  Damn am I excited!  And just in time for the long weekend, which should give me enough time to backup, install, and address any problems that may happen.

As I write this, I am now in the process of backing up my Macbook Pro.  I am using Super Duper and following the steps outlined by Lifehacker.   Then, during my free time, am going to iStudio to get my Leopard!

Leopard in Manila “on or before November 6″

iStudio will have Leopard “on or before November 6.”  They are taking reservations.  If you are one of the first 50 to signup for Leopard, they will throw in a 20% discount.

Parental Controls

One thing that got me excited about Leopard is their Parental Control feature.  Apple Insider describes it in a nutshell:

Parents can also set system restrictions that allow their children to only launch specific applications, or limit them from changing printer settings or from burning CDs. Content limitations (below), allow users to block dictionary words or webpages that they find objectionable. The web can be left unrestricted, set to automatically limit sites based on content filtering (which can be adjusted by manually adding a list of allowed or denied web sites), or restricted only to a given set of websites. By default, the latter option offers to let kids explore a selection of sites including Discovery, PBS, National Geographic, Disney, the Smithsonian; other sites can be added to the list.

Mail and iChat conversations can be limited to specific addresses, and time limits (above) can be defined to only allow access for a set amount of time per day on weekdays and on weekends. Bedtime settings limit computer use to specific on and off times, set for school nights and weekend nights. Logs can even record when the user account tries to access blocked web sites or unknown IM users, so parents can review the sites they are trying to access and give them permission (or try to determine why their kids are looking up how to build homemade fireworks).

For me, this is a welcome feature.   I’ve mentioned in Technopinoy on how parents struggle to control the Internet surfing habits of their children.   Apple’s decision to bundle this feature with Leopard is a step in the right direction.

Is Leopard coming this October 26th?

Yes it is.

It says so in the Apple homepage!