MacPinoy

A useless but interesting tidbit on Keynote

First of all, there is one song that I was able to download for free from iTunes. The song title was Bitch of Living, sung by Duncan Shiek, and I totally loved the song that it is now mainstay in my iPod. I am not sure if the song is still available for free in iTunes. In case you didn’t know, iTunes does offer some free music, although lately the quality is more barrel-bottom.

Now here is something interesting. According to Mac OSX Hints, the text you see in the Keynote icon is actually the first few lines of the song!

I know it is tough checking it out but I was able to find an enlarged image of the icon.

Onyx to the rescue!

I have gotten into a whole new level of admiration for Onyx.

Our Mac Mini was acting up. For some reason, in one of the user accounts, we could not attach files in Hotmail. We also couldn’t delete messages. The problem cropped up when I upgraded the Mac Mini from Tiger to Leopard. I didn’t do a fresh install. And I was beginning to regret it. I tried Safari, Firefox, even some of the other “fringe” browsers like Flock and Shiira. Still no go. The problem did not manifest if we were using an account with admin privileges, so I suspected it had something to do with security privileges. I had already turned off the Parental Controls, downloaded the latest versions of Safari and Firefox, but still it didn’t work.

I was about ready to do a fresh install. I already backed-up the machine. I already copied our personal files (pictures, documents, movies) to an external drive.

But then I figured to try Onyx to do some system clean-up and maintenance. Onyx is Titanium Software’s multifunction utility application. It claims to verify the status of the startup disk and the structure of system files.

What the heck, I told myself. What do I have to lose? It’s donation-ware.

First, it asked to check and verify my startup disk. And here it discovered the first problem. I don’t recall exactly what the error message was, but it asked me to repair the disk using Apple’s Disk Utility.

I had already cloned the Leopard installation DVD on an external drive, so running the repair function was a piece of cake.

After a repairing the startup disk, I went through Onyx’s maintenance screen which would verify and repair system permissions.

It took some time to execute. In the end, it found some inconsistent security permissions and corrected it automatically. Again I didn’t note down the message but it had to do with some java files. Could this be it?

After another restart, we gave it a try. Voila! Now it works!

Mighty arrogant of Apple…

Mozilla CEO John Lilly says in his blog that it is “wrong.”

It undermines the trust relationship great companies have with their customers, and that’s bad — not just for Apple, but for the security of the whole Web.

Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Watch describes the Apple Updater as a “Trojan Horse.”

Personally, I tend to agree with them. It’s mighty arrogant of Apple to push Safari to Windows users and package it as an “update.” True, the user has a choice to “uncheck” the selection box. But it’s still misleading.

Notice that Apple Updater terms it as an “update,” even if the user didn’t have Safari originally installed. Notice what the installer says: Select the items you wish to update. I don’t know about you, but when someone says “update,” I generally take it that some previous version exists.

Open Office for the Mac

Looks like the Mac version of Open Office 3.0 is moving along nicely. I downloaded the current Mac version—which is still in Development mode and not ready for prime-time—but I found it to be fairly workable.

Those who want a free stable office suite should check out NeoOffice.

Open Office 3.0 has a Mac version?

As I write this, I am downloading a Mac version of Open Office 3.0. I found it the existence of such a version through the Download Squad. Ok, so I know it’s probably a development version.

Well its 163MB in size. And it’s midnight already and I am damn sleepy after a long 20km bike ride through Muntinlupa, so I’ll check on it tomorrow when I wake up.

Cloning your Leopard Install DVD

My Leopard Install DVD has been acting up lately. I have a Leopard family pack and I had only used three of its five licenses. I was in a party with a friend and I had offered him that I will upgrade his Tiger OS to Leopard. He brought his Macbook; I brought my install DVD. Several hours later and several beers later, his Macbook was still reading the DVD.

There are several other reasons why you should backup and archive your install DVD. Performing a full disk restore using Time Machine requires that you boot up using the installation DVD. Running a disk repair also requires the installation DVD. Of all the devices on a computer, the optical disk drive is one that is most prone to breaking down. The DVD is also prone to damage. Losing either one of these critical pieces at a critical point in time will definitely make your eyes water. An external hard disk is definitely more reliable.

Preparation: You will need your Leopard install DVD and an external hard drive. The external hard drive needs about 10 GB to store the bootable disk image. The hard drive can be one single partition or it can have multiple partitions. It does not really matter. I created a dual partition external drive—one 15 GB for the bootable Leopard DVD image, the rest for Time Machine.

Step 1: With your Leopard installation DVD loaded, open up Disk Utility.

You should see the Mac OS X Install DVD at the left sidebar. Select it and then click on New Image.

You can save the disk image anywhere. Take note of the file name (in my case, it was Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg). I chose to save to the Desktop just so that it will be easy to locate.Now grab a sandwich or take a nap. It takes about an hour to create the disk image.

Step 2: Launch Disk Utility once more and select the Restore tab.Source should be the disk image that you created. In my case, it was Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg located on my desktop. Destination should be the partition on your external hard drive.

Now to test. With the external drive connected, boot up your Mac. Hold down the Option key as you are booting and you will be presented with your startup disk options. Your external drive should be visible. Select your external drive as your startup device and you are good to go!

Neverwinter Nights 2 and Magic: The Gathering

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of two games for the Mac. Neverwinter Nights 2 is arriving on the Mac on February 26.

Also, there is news that the Mac will have a game based on the Magic: The Gathering strategy card game. Will it be the same as the online version? I sincerely hope so. I played the Magic Online for countless hours.

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Magic the Gathering, Neverwinter Nights

Enjoying webkit

I was not really a fan of Safari. I have always been a Firefox fanatic. But now there is an interesting development afoot. There is an optimized version of Webkit that can be downloaded. Webkit is the browser engine that powers Safari. And it is definitely faster than Safari.

According to Computerworld, the new build of Webkit is “running circles around the standard Safari browser.” With Safari and Firefox open, I checked the activity monitor and the new Webkit build consumes more CPU and eats up more memory than Safari and Firefox, but it’s the real-world experience that counts. And it does load faster and it does render pages faster than both Safari and Firefox.

I know that the Apple browsers do not have the same level of plugins and addons that Firefox has, but I am beginning to sense that the lack of expandability is not a deal-breaker. I rarely use the plugins anyways and I am not too keen in changing the browser theme. I want a fast browser. I am tired of waiting and watching the browser icon bob up and down on my dock. So right now, the new Webkit is my browser of choice!

Insomniax

Here’s a free application that Macbook users will find useful.I for one get annoyed when my Macbook Pro goes to sleep when I close the lid. There are times that I want to maintain the internet connection. There are times that I want the music to continue playing. There are times that I do not want my Mac to attract attention (for example, in the office or when I have guests in the house), so I would close the lid and store the PC, but I also don’t want to interrupt whatever background task is executing, especially if it is a long-running task that I just run and forget (ripping DVDs or importing a TV show to iTunes). Insomniax appears to solve all that.

OS X 10.5.2 is out

If there is one reason to try out the new, updated Super Duper backup utility, it is this.  Apple has just released the latest upgrade to Leopard.

One of my biggest gripes is on Time Machine.  It’s a great utility, but I have no idea whether it is on standby mode or it is busy backing up my machine.  This info is especially important just before I pack up my laptop and disconnect the external drive as I don’t want to interrupt the backup process.  For me to check on the status, I have to launch System Preferences and click on the Time Machine icon.  Moreover, to bypass the hourly schedule and force Time Machine to do an immediate backup, you have to do it through Finder.   You can’t right-click on the external disk icon that’s floating on the desktop. 

Now, apparenly with this latest update, there is now a Time Machine icon on your menu bar.    By clicking this icon, you can see the date and time of the last Time Machine backup and commands to start a backup manually.   And when Time Machine is performing the backup, the icon, which is the shrunken Time Machine clock icon, will show the little clock’s hands moving backward. 

The other list of updates can be found here.