Developing Consumer Apps (MyNumberBlocker)

I love writing software and routinely create programs to meet my needs. In many cases my applications are very focused and have a market of one, so I don't bother polishing them or releasing them. There have been several exceptions to this including ReceiptWallet (now called Paperless and NotifyMail (NotifyMail was not quite consumer friendly, but did well in the enterprise). My latest application, MyNumberBlocker follows in the footsteps of my other apps in that it is very focused. This app is a one trick pony, but it solved my need to block the increasing number of phone calls that look like they come from the same prefix as my phone.

When I started MyNumberBlocker, I was able to get it running very quickly and decided that I could use it as an experiment to see how the current App Store operates. As an individual I've only put one app on the Apple App Store and that was many years ago. Making the app user friendly wasn't difficult, but took me awhile because I like tackling different types of problems and presenting a user interface with instructions was not fun. Another challenge was setting up a website and putting together some instructions.

I know that MyNumberBlocker isn't going to bring in enough money to change my life so I've set a very modest sales goal. The next step is figuring out how to market the app with little to no marketing budget!

Repairing a Time Machine backup

Apple's Time Machine can be considered a revolution in creating backups for average users. Plug in a hard drive, set it for Time Machine and it just works. When Apple introduced the Time Capsule routers, they brought this ease of use to devices that didn't have a dedicated external hard drive for backups. For the most part, this worked as well but there are sometimes issues.

When using Time Machine connecting to a Time Capsule, NAS, or other file server, a disc image in the form of a sparse bundle is created for each machine that is connected to the server. The sparse bundle is basically a wrapper that contains the hard drive. Inside of the wrapper are many files called bands that contain the data. This bundle grows as more data is added which is great. Unfortunately if something happens such as unplugging a computer from the network or closing the computer while the disc image is in use, the entire image can become corrupt.

Yesterday I disconnected my Mac from my Thunderbolt Display which was connected to Ethernet during a Time Machine backup. This caused the disc image to become corrupt. Up until now I had just accepted that I'd have to start over with the backup. I spent last week getting a new backup strategy in place and didn't want to start over again. I did some searching and found a few articles on repairing corrupted sparse bundles. I started with this article but instead of trying to perform the repair on the network, I screen shared to my Mac Pro and attempted to do the recovery locally. Unfortunately the steps outlined failed to repair my disc image. Another article had similar commands but didn't quite work either. Combining information from the two, I came up with my own steps to repair the image:

Attach to the disc image, but don't verify it or attempt to mount it. Note the readwrite option as this was key for my repair.

sudo hdiutil attach -nomount -noverify -noautofsck -readwrite /Volumes/Backups/Shared\ Items/Backups/Scott’s\ MacBook\ Pro.sparsebundle

Look at the output that will be something like:

/dev/disk6 Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk6s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk6s2 Apple_HFS

Make a note of the disk for the last entry that has HFS in it.

Perform the verification and repair using:

sudo fsck_hfs -drfy /dev/disk6s2

I had to do the above item twice to get a message that the volume was repaired successfully. This will take awhile depending on the damage and size of the disc image.

Once the volume has been repaired, issue the final command

sudo hdiutil detach /dev/disk6s2

After that I did a Time Machine backup and everything worked again! I tested out restoring a file and that worked as well. Now I have a way to fix the disc images when this happens in the future. Apple really needs to do something about this issue as the articles I referenced are 6 and 9 years old meaning this isn't a new problem.

Review: Western Digital MyBook Duo

Last year I was looking at options for adding storage to my Mac Pro that I use as a media center, Jenkins server, DVR, and security camera monitoring. The Mac Pro has a 1 TB SSD but storage is eaten up very quickly with everything running on it. I wanted at least 8 TB of usable storage and while I could use a RAID, I was more interested in configuring drives as JBOD (just a bunch of disks).

I decided to get the WD 8TB My Book Duo as the price was reasonable at the time and I could configure it as JBOD. I would have preferred Thunderbolt 2 but for the price I went with USB 3. When I got the drives I configured it as JBOD and then partitioned the drives. I was curious to know if I could take the drives out of the case (Western Digital makes it easy to do) and just connect them individually to my computer without the Western Digital case. Turns out you can't. The case does some magic to manage the drives. I was disappointed in this as it now became a potential point of failure where I couldn't just take the drives out if the case failed.

The setup worked fine for about a year and then I started noticing that sometimes I'd see error messages on my Mac Pro about the volumes unmounting. I tried plugging the case into a different USB port, but still saw these issues at times. Things started getting worse and I decided to see if the actual drives or the case was failing. I took the drives out of the case and put them in a Thunderbolt dual bay drive dock. This, of course, caused me to lose all my data because I didn't have the special WD magic sauce on the dock. It appeared that one drive was fine and the other drive was on its way out. I used the one drive and a second 2 TB drive in the dock for a few weeks and didn't have any of the problems I saw before.

In order to get warranty service on the Duo, I had to send it all back. Since I didn't know the state of the data on the drives I wanted to do a secure erase on the drives. I individually did a secure erase on the drives which worked fine negating my previous analysis that one of the drives was bad. I put the drives back in the case, reconfigured them then did a drive check using the WD utilities. The drive check failed which indicated to me that the case and not the drives were bad as I had just done a full secure erase which writes zeros to the drive.

The drives and case are now on their way back to Western Digital for warranty repair/replacement. While I don't know if I had bad luck with this, I've moved on to a different case which doesn't add magic sauce to the drives. Definitely a much more expensive solution than the MyBook Duo, but I trust it a lot more than I do the WD case.

Pros

• Reasonable price.
• Easy to setup.
• 3 year warranty.

Cons

• Crappy WD software to configure.
• JBOD configuration doesn't let you remove a drive and use it in another mechanism.
• Failed after 1.5 years.

Summary

If you're looking to add storage to a machine, I'd steer away from this case. In addition, Toshiba drives have been rated better for long term quality and in this case where the drives are running 24/7, spending some extra money on better drives will give me a little peace of mind. If the case simply allowed the drives to show up separately and not add the WD magic, I might have just chalked this up to a drive failure and given it a second chance. However, since all my data is locked into this case, I can't recommend it. Once my case and drives come back from warranty service, I'm not sure what I should do with it. Any ideas?

Review: BottlePro 2 - Adjustable and Extendable Car Cup Holder Adapter

Earlier this year I was given a Hydro Flask as a gift for being a Den Leader in my son's Cub Scout Pack. Why did I need another water bottle? After ignoring it for awhile I decided to see what made it so special. I filled it up with ice and water. It held water and ice, no big deal. The next day I hadn't finished the water and found the water to still be very cold. Since I like drinking cold water, this was the reason to use the water bottle. My only problem was that it didn't fit in my cup holder in my car due to its large size.

After a few months of putting the water bottle on the floor in the back seat and having it roll around where I couldn't use it, I decided to look for a solution. A quick search on Amazon came up with a number of options. The option I chose was the BottlePro 2 - Adjustable and Extendable Car Cup Holder Adapter. This bottle holder was designed to adjust to different cup holders by twisting the bottom and came with something that resembles a can coozie to make the fit a bit tighter.

I've been using this for a few months now and have absolutely no complaints about it. It does what it says and appears to be well made.

Pros

• Adjusts to fit different cup holders.
• With coozie on, it doesn't rattle around.
• Easy to get bottle in and out.

Cons

• It sits very high because the entire bottle is basically sitting on top of the cup holder and not in it. (Not a flaw in the product, just how it works.)
• Price is a bit high.

Summary

If you have a large bottle and want to have easy access to water in your car, this product is a winner. I would also recommend getting the Hydro Flask Hydro Flip Lid so that you don't have to keep unscrewing the lid.