Linucks

Crashes Weren't Squeeze After All

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:10:43 -0600

Last week I issued a caution about Squeeze possibly causing kernel panics. Well, it turns out that Squeeze wasn’t the root cause, but it probably just made my problem more evident. If you want to give Squeeze a shot, go for it! Don’t let my experience scare you off.

The problem was that one of my 4GB SODIMMs was bad, and that was what was causing all the kernel panics. I had previously tried testing my RAM with TechTool Pro, but it didn’t find any issues. A friend of mine suggested that I tried Memtest OS X. Low and behold, it found issues left and right! I tried removing and swapping sticks and narrowed it down to one specific stick. The RMA is in and while I’m temporarily down to 5GB of RAM (long story) instead of 8GB, I can at least run stably now.

Concerns with Squeeze (and a fix)

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:46:00 -0600

So after Saturday’s install of Squeeze, I’ve had some issues with my Mac. Here are the issues I’ve observed so far:

Random hard OS X crashes
CrashPlan engine crashing
Spotlight indexing never completes

Of course, I can’t say that Squeeze caused all of these issues, but I think that it’s not worth the risk to save 600MB on a 500GB hard drive. If anything, I’m going to say that Spotlight issues were the root cause of the CrashPlan issues, and I have no idea about the OS X crashes. However, I was able to fix it pretty quickly. After removing the directories from the Squeeze interface, just run this command from terminal for each directory you “squeezed”:

mac:~ myhome$ afscexpand Dropbox/

The command will complete after a minute or so (depending on size), and you’ll be left with your files in the original uncompressed state.

So That's Where they Go...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:38:34 -0600

@markomni:

lol RT @paultakahashi: Lame. … RT @tdkyo: Somebody just has purchased northwesternrejects.com

I saved over 600MB in a matter of minutes with Squeeze. Make...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:41:00 -0600

I saved over 600MB in a matter of minutes with Squeeze. Make sure to grab your copy soon before they’re all gone!

Perhaps the only hospital you’d ever need. Why go...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:04:06 -0600

Perhaps the only hospital you’d ever need. Why go anywhere else? What’s the worst that could happen?

Are We All Asking to Be Robbed?

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:48:03 -0600

Are We All Asking to Be Robbed?:

This is exactly why I don’t like GeoTagging. I’m glad that they’ve made this site to show the craziness of it all.

Belarus rips off “The Big Bang Theory” in “The...

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:54:00 -0600

Belarus rips off “The Big Bang Theory” in “The Theorists”. You can read more information here.

Did you know that QBASIC Gorillas was created by IBM, and not...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:11:54 -0600

Did you know that QBASIC Gorillas was created by IBM, and not Microsoft?

What'd It Take to Kill the iPhone?

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:09:00 -0600

What'd It Take to Kill the iPhone?:

Answer: a device just as capable as the iPhone, but the same price as an iPod touch and comes completely unlocked. It appears that’s exactly what Google may be doing.

School Done, What's a Saturday?

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:13:05 -0600

Okay, now that I’m done with school for the year it’s time for me to find something fun to do on this Saturday. Any ideas?

Also, I should now resume my regular blogging/tumbling/twittering/facebooking schedule. I’ve got lots of ideas up my sleeve for topics so I should be able to keep at least a little busy here.

Still Alive?

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:24:00 -0600

Yes, I’ve been silent the last couple weeks. Work and school has been kicking my butt, but I’m about wrapped up. Poker on Friday, then I’m not going to know what to do with myself on Saturday!

I’m still working on my Marketing final, but I have until 11:59pm on Friday, so what’s the rush?

Quake 3 is 10 Years Old Today

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:49:46 -0600

Quake 3 is 10 Years Old Today:

I remember when this first came out and playing it in college. This definitely makes me feel old.

Hackintosh is going Bye-Bye

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:34:07 -0600

I’ve recently had some flakey behavior with my Hackintosh, and some of that has been traced back to incompatibilities between my Drobo using USB (FW800 is REALLY slow on it for some reason) and the version of OS X I’m running (10.5.7). The best fix would be to do a reinstall and get it back on 10.5.6. Even then, I know that it’ll just be a matter of time before something else pops up.

Luckily I was able to grab a refurbished 1GB 2.0GHz Mac Mini off of the Apple Store for cheap. Even better is the RAM I just took out of my MBP will bring it up to 4GB.

I’m looking forward to having a Mac server that will do everything (Bonjour, Back to my Mac, working video, fast FW800, security updates) and won’t require constant babysitting. Also, this now frees up the Atom hardware from the hackintosh to do my firewall project. It’s a win-win!

I’ll probably do another Hackintosh at some point in the future, but I won’t have it be something that I rely on daily, as it just requires too much care and feeding.

Look for some future posts on using the Mac Mini as a server and setting up pfSense on the Atom hardware.

An End to VM Frustration

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:25:00 -0600

Last week I hit a wall of frustration trying to run several VMs and always being at or near 100% memory and the swapping that resulted. Usually just one VM and the typical applications I ran in OS X were enough to bring everything to it’s knees. Well, I decided enough was enough and placed an order for an 8GB kit from Newegg.com. This is the result:

Just testing it out, I launched 2 XP VMs and a Windows 7 VM, along with every app I typically use. I didn’t hit 100%, but I did make it over the 6GB barrier:

Before doing this, I was really torn between a SSD drive and this upgrade. However, this appears to have solved all my woes. I’m sure SSD would be even better, but this is amazing as is.

Would I recommend this upgrade? If you use VMware Fusion heavily on your Mac, and especially if you do demos in VMs with your Mac, I would say with no reservations.

Drobo expands line with Drobo S and Drobo Elite

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:44:55 -0600

Drobo expands line with Drobo S and Drobo Elite:

I love my Drobo. If you’re in the market, the new models look like excellent additions.

Diablo III: Blizzard Says Goodbye to Skill Trees

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:44:49 -0600

Diablo III: Blizzard Says Goodbye to Skill Trees:

I’ll be very interested in finding out what they do. I both love and hate skill trees. I understand the purpose of trying to get me down a certain path, but it can also be very limiting. There may be strategies that I can dream up that the developers never did that would be possible without the skill tree.

According to Blizzard’s official Twitter, the revision of Diablo III’s skill system is in full swing, with an announcement that skill trees are completely gone from the latest iteration.

“Diablo: The skill system revision is in full force. Trees begone! I think it might be a winner. Jay says hi.”

Disconnect Google Reader from Twitter?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:49:55 -0600

My Google Reader feed just started working again (went public) and realized that it may be a bit spammy on twitter. Do you guys want me to disconnect it?

HTPC Upgrade Progress Report

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:11:44 -0600

It was decided that last night I would attempt to upgrade our HTPC with some parts we had laying around. This would be a combination of cannibalization from machines that haven’t been touched since we got our Macs, and some parts that had been given to us by friends that were untested.

Here’s how the install went:

Install motherboard
Find out that a metal tab from the backing plate was blocking the PS/2 ports
Remove motherboard
Install motherboard
Find out that metal tabs from the backing plate were blocking the Ethernet ports
Remove motherboard
Install motherboard
Install hard drives
Find out that hard drives blocked the power connector on the motherboard
Remove hard drives
Move hard drives to alternate mounting locations
Find out that alternate hard drive carrier hits video card
Bend the crap out of the hard drive carrier to make it fit
Find out that the hard drive carrier now blocks the power connector on the video card
Bend the crap out of the hard drive carrier the OTHER way
Cable up all the power and internal cables
Hit power button
Power breaker trips

*sigh*

I was having fun with the install, up to a point. Now I’m wondering why I didn’t just go to the Apple store and pick up an Apple TV for $200 and call it a day. Right now I have no HTPC until I get something worked out. Plan B is to take some other known working parts that should work and get it going that way. Plan C is to start throwing stuff.

Once I get everything running, the plan is to get Windows 7 on there to use the Windows Media Center. I’ll post reviews of Windows 7 as a HTPC if/when I get it running!

Mac App of the Week - iEyeNet

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0600

Mac App of the Week - iEyeNet:

This weeks pick of the week is iEyeNet. iEyeNet is a widget that allows you to see the network interface utilization on any SNMP-capable device. Why would you want this? Simply put, it allows you to see what your Internet bandwidth utilization is at a glance.

If you have DD-WRT, this will work with with very little effort. All you need to do, is go into the “Services” and enable SNMP. The default settings will work just fine, but you may want to change the community strings to something only you know for a little bit extra security.

Once you have SNMP enabled on your router, install iEyeNet and configure it as seen below. If your router is also your gateway IP address, it should enter that for you. If not, set the Router/Gateway address to the IP of your router. Set the SNMP community string to the string you set (or public by default), and then set the interface to monitor to vlan1, which corresponds to the WAN interface of most DD-WRT installs. It may be slightly different depending on the model you’re using (I’m using a WRT54g). If you can’t figure it out from looking at your router configuration, go ahead and try the each of the interfaces until you find the one that appears to match your Internet traffic usage.

Lastly, if your upload and download lines are reversed, you can just check “Flip Up/Down” to correct it.

That’s it for this week’s Mac App of the Week. Be sure to check back next Saturday for the next pick!

GM, this is why you're failing

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:43:00 -0600

Now that you’re making some decent products, you should consider figuring out your marketing. Even if I wanted to buy a GM vehicle, I’d be confused as to which one I should buy because they’re practically the same with different body panels!

These two Google AdWords ads just showed up exactly like this on a website for me:

I assume I’d buy the Chevy Equinox if I want MPG, and the GMC Terrain if I want IPSI (ideas per square inch).