Tag: Software

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Another fight with OS X Server

It seems that every few weeks, I have another fight with OS X server. I still run Leopard Server as most of our Xserves are PPC and won’t run Snow Leopard, so these issues may have been addressed. I was moving our wiki and our sites from one server to another and that’s where the fun started. It appeared that the setting for where the wiki would be located wouldn’t stick. There appeared to be an issue with LDAP.

When I was touching the Web settings, I saw error messages in the log like was reported here

May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: servermgr_web: htcleancache disabled
May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: *** -WPWebServices updateWebServices:withVirtualHosts:withSession:: Couldn't update the WebServices record in /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1. Reason: Unable to set value(s) for dsAttrTypeNative:apple-serviceinfo in record $.
May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: servermgr_web: Failure saving group services update: (null)
May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: servermgr_web: Multi instance key 'SSLLog' has a single value=''!
May 27 20:17:22: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

(I was so frustrated, I didn’t copy the error messages, so what you see above is from the link referenced above.)

I gave up on this the other day and hacked on LDAP to get things working, but today I had to revisit it. I was starting to wind down my work day today when I had a stroke of genius; the error message referenced a host that I thought I had changed (I thought that when the LDAP server was setup, forward and reverse DNS were setup as those are critical to Open Directory working). I remembered one reference to the old hostname in Workgroup Manager. I went in Workgroup Manager, clicked on the computer tab, selected the old hostname, and changed the name to the real name, saved the entry, restarted servermgrd and presto, the error went away! Yeah!

I might give Snow Leopard server a test drive, but as long as Apple wraps command line tools up with a GUI, there are going to be problems. There is no way that they can handle all possible issues

If this solution helps you and saves you time (I think I spent a full day fighting with this), please purchase something through the Amazon link.

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A geotagging tip for iPhoto

I one of my articles about using PhotoLinker and i-Got-U GPS, I had kind of a cumbersome method for geotagging the photos. Well, today I discovered an option in iPhoto “Rescan for Location”. So now my process is as follows:

  1. Import GPS tracks using igotu2gpx.
  2. Drop gpx file on PhotoLinker.
  3. Import photos into iPhoto.
  4. Drag photos from iPhoto to PhotoLinker.
  5. Geotag photos in PhotoLinker.
  6. Select photos in iPhoto, control click and select “Rescan for Location”.

This is huge for me as I don’t have to import the photos into the Finder, then into PhotoLinker and then import into iPhoto. My camera doesn’t show up as a Mass Storage device, so I had to take out my SD card and place it in a reader. With this new method, that isn’t required.

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Review: EyeTV

41+fCBQnIAL._SL160_.jpgNow that I have a high definition TV, I needed to find a solution to record HD content. We’ve had a TiVo for 5 years now, so watching live TV on a regular basis was not an option. After some research, I decided to turn a Mac Mini I had into a media center using El Gato’s EyeTV 250 Plus.

As I wrote before, the options for having 1 DVR that records analog cable and clear QAM channels are quite limited. The EyeTV handles this, so it is a huge plus for it.

The first thing I noticed after installing the EyeTV is that it isn’t a TiVo. Well, duh, it isn’t made by TiVo. The way I look at it, the TiVo is the gold standard in DVRs as the interface is easy to use, has Season Passes to record all episodes of a show and can be configured from a remote control. The EyeTV is a computer program and easiest way I’ve found to do the scheduling is to use Apple Remote Desktop to connect to the machine and use the program guide instead of being able to use the remote.

It took me awhile to figure out how to effectively use the remote control and on screen menus and last night was the first time I watched TV (I’ve had it for about a week now) using just the remote control and not using my MackBook Pro to control it. The quality is quite good and the on screen menus can be negotiated fairly easily (not as easily as the TiVo, however. Now that I’ve realized the limitation of the programming, I think I can live with it. However, it won’t pass the wife test; I’ll have to do the programming and show my wife how to view the recordings.

Pros

  • Ability to use an existing Mac to use as a DVR.
  • Easy to add drive space for expansion (add an external hard drive).
  • Records analog cable.
  • Records clear QAM channels.
  • Free TV Guide guide data for a year.
  • Record scheduling via TitanTV.
  • Ability to add commercial skipping (in recordings) using etv-comskip. This may be the killer feature of the EyeTV. In my testing, this has worked most of the time.
  • Recordings can be shared to other machines if they have EyeTV installed, or if they are exported to AppleTV and added to iTunes, or if they are exported to iPhone format and viewed over the web.

Cons

  • It isn’t a TiVo.
  • I haven’t figured out how to remotely schedule clear QAM channels.
  • Scheduling has to be done from a remote computer. A web interface (advertised via Bonjour) would be ideal.
  • On screen menus need work as there are far too many clicks to do anything. Take a look at the TiVo.
  • On screen menus seem slow.
  • Remote control is a piece of junk. It is far too light (in weight) and the buttons aren’t labelled to reflect what they do. I’ve had to look at the manual a few times and play around with it to figure out how to use it.
  • More needs to be done to allow full control via the remote control if El Gato wants to hits the media center market.
  • Toast Basic which is included is a waste as the only goal is to upsell you and while it is nice to have some kind of recording software, I don’t like getting slapped with “you can’t do this unless you upgrade”. El Gato might have been able to strike a better deal with Disco or just build in basic disc burning themselves. Mac OS X includes APIs for burning DVDs.
  • I haven’t found an option to automatically delete recordings after x days or when disc space gets slow.
  • No option to say how much disc space you want to devote to recordings.
  • No ability to stream live TV to other machines.
  • If recordings are shared for AppleTV (to share over iTunes), they have to be manually removed.

Overall Recommendation

I have a love/hate relationship with this product so far. I like being able to record HD and non-HD content using my setup without having to purchase more content. In addition, I like the commercial skipping (via open source software). The scheduling, however, is the biggest downside to making this a true TiVo replacement. In addition, the on screen menus need a lot of work. I’m definitely going to keep this and learn to use it more. However, I can’t whole heartedly recommend the EyeTV. It isn’t a product for the novice and won’t pass the wife test in ease of use. Some of the export options may make it more useful as I have a few trips coming up.

I’ll post updates as I learn more and possibly as the software gets updated.

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Review: PhotoLinker

As part of reviewing the i-Got-U GT-120, I searched for a Mac solution to handle geotagging of photos. There are lots of options on the Mac. I looked at many of them and GPSPhotoLinker worked quite well and was free to top it off. In addition, the interface was very Mac like. I liked what I saw, so I asked the developer for a copy of PhotoLinker, GPSPhotoLinker’s big brother, to review.

GPSPhotoLinker and PhotoLinker share a main purpose and that is to geotag photos. In both programs, you load in your track files. (Hint, create a folder on your hard drive and put all your track files there and keep them so that you can reference them later. Both programs link to the files and don’t copy them.) Both programs do their basic job well in that you load your tracks and pictures and basically click “geotag”. If all you need is geotagging, then I have to recommend the free GPSPhotoLinker as it worked well in my testing.

PhotoLinker starts adding bells and whistles that may make it worth $50 to prosumer or professional photographers.

PhotoLinker adds:

  • Cleaner interface. The basic PhotoLinker view puts the geotagging console hidden so that what you see are your pictures, a map, and tags associated with the picture. GPSPhotoLinker confuses the interface by having the first column be the area to geotag.
  • Ability to add EXIF tags outside of the standard geotagging information such as keywords, description, people shown, and event.
  • More customization in view options.

I put both products through some tests and the rest of this review will focus on the paid PhotoLinker product.

Pros

  • Easy to use.
  • Works well.
  • Clean user interface; very Mac like.

    There isn’t a lot to say as it does what it is supposed to do and does it simply.

Cons

  • Map choices aren’t all that useful; Google and the more mainstream maps aren’t options. The developer has indicated on his forums that this is due to licensing costs with the mainstream vendors.
  • No direct downloading of iGotU data. (The open source iGotU software is GPL licensed which would make it impossible without separate arrangements to integrate it.)
  • No AppleScript support. Normally I wouldn’t care, but when my end goal is to get geotagged files into iPhoto, automation would be most welcome.
  • Cost is a bit high.

Overall impressions

I really like the concept of geotagging my photos. I don’t travel all that much, but anticipate taking vacations in the future with my family (have you ever travelled with a 2 year old? It isn’t the most pleasant experience.) For basic geotagging needs, the free GPSPhotoLinker will handle all my needs. I can’t justify the $50 for PhotoLinker for a few user interface improvements. I don’t see myself using additional EXIF tagging, so that feature isn’t a key to me. PhotoLinker will have to add some real compelling features to justify the cost; I can’t think of any features right now, so I’m not much help to the developer. I’d be more than happy to take another look at PhotoLinker when improvements are made to see if my recommendation against buying stands.

GPSPhotoLinker Screenshot PhotoLinker Screenshot
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Reduction in frustration

For work, we use a Cisco VPN. Unfortunately the Cisco VPN client for the Mac is a piece of crap. The software looks awful and isn’t completely integrated into the OS. It gets quite confused if you switch networks without disconnecting; instead of it repairing the mess it made, it almost always requires a few restarts to get things going again. The problem is that it replaces /var/run/resolv.conf (/etc/resolv.conf is symlinked to it) with DNS for the VPN. So, if you disconnect properly, your original DNS settings are put back; if you don’t disconnect properly, then DNS gets wacky.

One of the killer features in Snow Leopard is Cisco VPN support. I’ve read reports of it not working for some depending on if their VPN is using UDP or TCP; it works fine for me. The one annoying problem was that it asked for my password about every 45 minutes which almost made me crazy. A colleague sent me a tip today which solves this.

While the VPN client supplied by Cisco gets confused with network changes, the one built into Snow Leopard seems to disconnect properly on network changes and doesn’t muck with /var/run/resolv.conf. The only issue I’ve found so far is that using a command line tool like “dig” doesn’t resolve DNS lookups properly for lookups that are in my work’s domain (we use split DNS). Other terminal tools such as SSH work fine, so this is just a minor inconvenience.

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Shattered (Media Center) Dreams

Now that I’ve made the leap to HDTV, I had to find a way to record HD shows. I thought that I’d turn a Mac Mini into a media center with El Gato’s EyeTV. I bought the EyeTV 250 Plus, hooked it up and was immediately disappointed. I’m used to TiVo and the user interface is second to none for using and scheduling. While my wife isn’t technology adverse, sometimes she’s a bit slow in adopting the technology I throw at her. It took awhile for her to accept the TiVo, now we don’t know what we’d do without it.

The EyeTV software is computer software and not consumer software; scheduling basically needs to be done with a mouse. I can use Apple Remote Desktop and schedule from my laptop, but that kind of makes it more difficult to program.

I looked briefly at the HD TiVo and the price tag didn’t faze me, but there are 2 things about the device that basically killed it for me. First, I have basic cable which also gets me 6 or 7 digital HD channels. The HD TiVo requires CableCARDs to get guide data for the digital channels. The second is that the HD TiVo cannot record 2 HD channels using basic cable at once. This completely baffles me, but their FAQ tells me this. TiVo has actually confused basic cable and digital cable like I did. (The guide with the EyeTV provides guide data for the digital channels I get over basic cable.)

I had hoped to ditch my TiVo and retire my Apple TV to switch to a Mac Mini, but at this point, it looks like I’m going to keep the TiVo so my wife can program it for most shows and use the Mac Mini for HD shows. We’ll see how this works. So far, the HD recordings are nice, but the scheduling is not easy to do without using Apple Remote Desktop.

Oh well. I think that this is a conspiracy to get me to get me to buy “Digital Cable” from my cable company; something that I refuse to do as I’m unwilling to pay an exorbitant amount of money for TV when we watch just the regular over the air channels.

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It’s here!

Snow Leopard arrived today and I quickly installed it on my test machine. After that was done, I setup the test machine for email, VPN, and jabber. Then I was off to installing it on my main machine. I had planned to do a clean install (archive and install), but that option didn’t appear to exist. There was probably some magic trick, but I didn’t find it.

The upgrade went well and when I restarted, everything worked fine. For some reason, I was disappointed with the upgrade. I knew there was nothing really major from a user point of view, but I was still disappointed. So far, so good with Snow Leopard. A few mail plugin I use don’t work; since I wrote 2 of them, I get to fix them which will be fun.

Oh and I managed to recover about 15 GB of hard drive space which was a nice benefit.

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Damn you, Quicken

Each time a new operating system comes out, I look at what I no longer need and start trying to clean house. One optional install of Snow Leopard is Rosetta which lets people run PowerPC applications. Why would anyone need this when applications have been Intel native or Universal binaries for years? For me, the loan application that has me installing Rosetta is Quicken. I’m now on Quicken 2007, but it still isn’t Intel native. Looks like I have to wait until February or so of some year (maybe next) to get a version of Quicken that runs natively on an architecture (Intel) that has been on the Mac platform for 3.5 years.

Is there a better financial app out there that reads Quicken data and handles my portfolio? I have yet to find one.

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Bye, bye NetNewsWire

I’ve been using NewNewsWire for a number of years as my RSS reader as it was easier to use than Safari and a better solution than reading news in Mail. I paid whatever the license fee was and was happy to do it; the program got acquired by NewsGator and became free. It was still maintained, so I was happy. This summer, they announced the end of their own sync service and started allowing people to sync with Google Reader.

I never used Google Reader, so I gave it a try and was very impressed how a web site could work as well as a desktop RSS reader. Since a lot of RSS feeds have links and pictures in them, reading RSS offline doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I’ve been exclusively using Google Reader for a few weeks and really have no reason to go back to NetNewsWire.

When NewsGator switched to syncing with Google Reader, they announced that they were going to stick ads in it and give people the option of paying to remove the ads. I don’t have a problem with this, but I no longer need the product.

Brent, I’ve enjoyed using your software, but in my effort to simplify, Google Reader will suffice. While many people will argue that a desktop reader has so many more features than Google Reader, I ask, “do you need all those features?”. I don’t.

Yes, I am being sucked into the Google world and it isn’t half bad (if you believe that your information has ever been private and secure, you are surely mistaken).

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Unable to control my excitement

Snow Leopard is set to be released on Friday. I had originally ordered it from Amazon, but once I saw that the Apple Store guaranteed delivery on Friday, I cancelled my Amazon order and ordered from Apple. Amazon dropped the price a few bucks today and without tax, would have been cheaper, but I couldn’t wait! Amazon may actually deliver on Friday, but I decided to spend the extra bucks so I could play with it this weekend (not sure I’ll have much time, however).

I ordered the Family Pack as I have 4 computers and may get another one to use as a media center. While I know that there is no difference between the single user copy and the Family Pack, I’m doing the right thing by getting fully licensed copies of it. It’s not all that expensive, so it doesn’t hurt much to spend the money on it. If it were $150-$200, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the family pack and would only have upgraded my main machine.

As others have already written, most of the changes are under the hood. Those changes should lead to a more stable operating system, at least that is the hope. I’ll likely do a clean install (if the install DVD lets me) and start rebuilding my system. This will take awhile, but after having my machine for 10 months, I’ve installed a lot of cruft.

We’ll see how this upgrade goes; at this point, I have no plans on upgrading our company as I need to kick the tires for awhile and see if there is a real benefit for deploying it.

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