Techknowlogy

Is it Time to Upgrade Your Wi-Fi Router?

2020-03-26T23:17:00.000-04:00

In the time of the Corona pandemic, many of us have been asked to work from home. If you are like me, this is when you don't want to drop out of a call or get disconnected from a remote session because of network issues.

If your computer, phone, tablet or smart home device are randomly having network connection issues over Wi-Fi forcing you to reset your router. It's most likely time to replace your Wi-Fi router, but there are so many different ones out there. Here is a quick rundown of which one to get and why.

First, remember the days of WiFi being based on 802.11 and an alphabet like a, b, d, g or n? It was confusing since 802.11a, which is the first letter of the alphabet, is better than 802.11b, but "b" comes after "a", so we think it should be better. If there is "a" and "b", you think there is "c" then "d", but no. It skips around and now we have two letters like "ac", "ad" and "ax".

To make things easier to understand, the Wi-Fi Alliance recently decided to now call the technology by a generation number instead of letters, so Wi-Fi 6, is better than Wi-Fi 5, which is better than Wi-Fi 4 and so on. For more details go to wi-fi.org.

If you don't have at least a Wi-Fi 5 router, you should upgrade!

Back to the question, why should I get a new Wi-Fi router and which one should I get?

Consider a few years ago, there is probably only one computer at home and Wi-Fi was used, so one doesn't have to run an ethernet cable, but now one person in the house may have many devices like a watch, a phone, a tablet, a laptop, a desktop and a gaming console multiple that by the number of people in the house then add all the smart home devices. We can see the devices that need access to Wi-Fi quickly adds up and old W-Fi routers are not designed for this.

With that said, if your Wi-Fi router does not support 802.11ac or Wi-Fi generation 5, I would recommend an upgrade because anything older than is using technology from more than 10 years ago. 802.11n or Wi-Fi generation 4 was released in 2009. The upgrade will help you to really enjoy all your smart devices with quicker response, faster transfer speed, less glitches when watching a video and have a stable audio/video conference.

Which Wi-Fi router should one upgrade to?

Don't get a 802.11g or 802.11n router especially if it's already used. There is not much life left on these old routers. At the minimum get something from Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) family, but Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) is the latest and greatest. I will list the most common levels of routers with a sample in the order of performance, so pick one of these. Enjoy!

Wi-Fi 5

AC1200
AC1300
AC1750
AC1900
AC2900
AC3000
AC4000
AC5400
AD7200

Wi-Fi 6

AX1500
AX3000
AX6000

Benefit of a Regular Technology Inventory and Review

2018-11-07T02:41:00.001-05:00

Benefit of a Regular Technology Inventory and Review

Working in IT, many of us are familiar with the typical hardware inventory of how many switches and how many servers we have. However, we might not always know what exactly is running in those servers and what technologies/services they are offering the enterprise. We are always trying to solve problems presented by the users by introducing new technologies. For the sake of time and how urgent users usually present their problems, we go with what we know or what's popular. In a smaller organization that's not a big problem since the IT staff usually knows the amount of technology they are supporting, but when organizations grow technology introduced also increase with many competing solutions. The cost of having competing solutions in the enterprise isn't just paying for two or more different solutions instead of one. It's much more than that:

There are cost of having to train people to support the additional solution.
There are cost of having to train the users on how to use the additional solution.
There are increased operational costs of paying for more Cloud services, colo fees, maintenance fees and/or in-house facility and utility (power, networking, racking, etc).
There are cost of putting together and managing the documentations.
There are cost of keeping up with the changes to the solution to keep it up-to-date.
There are cost of monitoring it as a mission critical service and have a response in place when failures are detected.
There are cost of making disaster recovery plans for the new service/technology.
There are cost of making backups or storing archives.
There are cost of keeping it secure and compliant, so critical enterprise data are not stolen or modified.

These are just some of the increased costs involved when adding a new technology into the enterprise. There are other costs that are harder to account for such as the lost of work efficiency when users have to pause and decide which of the competing solution to use because two or technologies are doing the same thing ie having OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, iCloud and Adobe Creative Cloud to store files in the Cloud. On top of this, most organizations probably only leveraging 20% or less of their solutions, so the probably could have been solved by leveraging the other un-utilized 80%. By taking a technology inventory of all available solutions that's already in-play and understanding if there are features yet to be leveraged or replace the aging solution yields better cost effectiveness than constantly introducing new technologies.

Setup Apple Software Update Server over NAS

2017-03-23T15:03:00.000-04:00

(DRAFT)

The whole idea behind this article is simple:

Apple stopped selling an enterprise level server hardware, but we still need to manage Apple Software Updates within the enterprise environment.
Reposado (and therefore NetSUS) is an Open-source Apple Software Update Server web app, but is a little more complex to manage because it lacks the CGI code to figure out which catalog to serve up to your Macs, so you have to know the exact URL and in my experience it's a little behind when there is a new OS. If you can live with these limitations then it's great because you can actually create various branches from one single server. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Greg Neagle's work.

With this said, the best option for me is still Apple's own Apple Software Update Server. It's always up-to-date with Apple's own code and CGI, so you can support both new macOS and legacy by simply pointing your Macs to the server.

For an enterprise, this is a tiny price to pay:

$499 for a Mac mini
$29 for a Thunderbolt NIC for redundancy
$20 for Server from the Apple App Store

The problem is storage. The new Mac mini has gone the route of limited expandability, so there is no way to do an internal RAID, but if we are in an enterprise environment, our NAS should have plenty of space and lots of data production.

What I want to solve with this project is to use the NAS to store all the Apple Software Updates and use the Mac mini as compute running the OS.

Here are the steps to do just that:

Unbox your brand new Mac mini and run through Apple's Setup Assistant
Configure Energy Saver

Since this is a server, you don't want this Mac to go to sleep.
Go to System Preferences > Energy Saver then check the box "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off."

Sync with your Time Server
Use scutil to name your server
Create a Virtual NIC for redundancy
Bind to your directory service and grant whichever group is required admin rights
Install the Server App from the Apple App Store
Turn On Apple Software Update within Server to create the needed folders
Turn Off Apple Software Update
Configure a NFS Export on the NAS
Configure /etc/auto_master
Configure Apple Software Update

Configure /Library/Server/Software Update/Config

Let Apple Software Update download the needed patches
Point Macs to your new Apple Software Update server to get the allowed updates

Enjoy!

Where is a good place to buy a Mac computer?

2016-06-13T15:52:00.002-04:00

I get asked this question a lot, so I figure I'll just post my answer. The benchmark price is the price one will get buying directly from Apple, either online or in the Apple Store, so we are going for a price lower than that.

Before you buy, just know I haven't tried everyone of these places, so you will have to do your own research.

Apple

Even buying directly from Apple there are other options:

Apple Education Price - yes Homeschools can also get a discount and usually during the summer there are special educational deals. At the time of writing they are giving away free Beats headphone with purchase.
Apple Business Discount - Apple will sometimes provide business discounts or financing, so check this out if you are running a business.
Apple Refurb Price - Refurbished deals have a good discount and carries the same warranty as a new Mac. I have personally used it before and didn't have an issue with it.

Authorized Resellers

Since resellers want your business, they usually either sell their Macs for a lower price or they provide a better combo deal. Here is a small list of ones I know. Check around, there might also be local authorized resellers near you.

Mac Mall
Zones - You might know them as Mac Zone in the past
Best Buy
B & H
Microcenter
Other World Computing - they also provide upgrades and used Macs

Used Macs

Macs usually retain the value better than Windows, so if you don't have to have the latest and greatest you might want to consider a used Mac. Also, of note is that you can probably sell your older Mac to them. The only thing you want to be careful of is that don't get legacy hardware that are no longer being supported by Apple's OS. You will have to do some research, but MacTracker will provide you with these details.

GainSaver - if you don't mind some dings, they have pretty good prices - this is where I got my current home MacPro
UsedMac
mac of all trades
Power Max - they will take your old Mac as a trade
Amazon - they will allow users with Amazon accounts to post and sell their used Mac

Of course, there are always:

Hope this list helps! Happy computing!

Apple Server Hardware Migration: The Easy Way

2016-05-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

Recently, I was over confident in Apple hardware that's running our Wiki. Sure, for many years our Apple servers never gave us any failures or problems, so why shouldn't I think it's going to keep running like it has for more than five years (other Apple servers are running even longer than that and still running 10.6.8 - you guessed it, because it's running Final Cut Server).

Anyway, I had mirrored drives, but because it's running both the Caching service and Wiki, the drives are constantly spinning. Finally, we had our first failure. After taking a look, I found that it's because one of the drives had failed. Being a good engineer, I should immediately have replaced the failed drive, but it was a Mac mini, so I would have to take that thing apart to even get to the failed drive. I think to myself, we are about to retire the Final Cut Server because we are transitioning to another product, so I can use that hardware instead. This Mac mini still has one drive, and it's backed up, so we should be okay for a little more while. This is a bad decision. Eventually, the second drive also started exhibiting more and more bad blocks/sectors, so it went into read only mode to protect itself from further corruption or it's just that it doesn't know where to write to anymore. I'm not sure.

I tried many things to recover the server and migrate to a new set of RAID, but after 3 days, it's the simplest thing that actually worked, so I decided to write this to remind myself and help others if there is a next time:

Carbon Copy Clone - failed because the source drive can't be read at certain sectors
Copied /Library/Server to another machine - works for a while then fails due to PostgreSQL problems - did lots of permissions manipulation, try to figure out how to use both PostgreSQL to export and import, attempt using serveradmin and wikiadmin to either fix, export, import, update scheme, etc. These all yield temporary results, where it works then after reboot doesn't work anymore.

What finally worked is so simple, I can't believe I didn't try that first. I guess Apple had this figured out all along.

Here are the steps that I took to not only do a hardware migration, but at the same time bring the Server from 10.9 to 10.11.5:

Install El Capitan on RAID1 on the new machine (it looks like Apple is no longer developing their software RAID, so I used SoftRAID. It has more features and its being supported. They got my vote of confidence).
Upon first boot, Migration Assistant kicks in to do the initial configuration and make the initial account. Put the server with the failing hard drive in target disk mode and connect it via Firewire (works with Thunderbolt too) to the new Mac. Migration Assistant found all settings and it recognized that it's a server and offered to migrate everything, so I let it migrate everything. It took the whole day, I'm guessing because it's migrating all the cache, plus it was on the failed drive. I didn't know if it will actually finish, but it didn't crash, so I let it go.
After Migration Assistant completed, the new machine boot for the first time, my previous accounts are retained, so I logged in using the previous account. I patched the OS, confirmed my time/date server, confirmed server name and confirmed my directory bind.
Finally, I installed the El Capitan Server App from the App Store. The computer prompted me saying that the Server App is being replaced, so all services will be shutdown. After the Server App was finally upgraded, I launched the Server App and it took a little while, I'm guessing it's doing migration, but after it was done I got everything back.
I was looking for that Staples button to just hit it in excitement, but I don't have one, so instead I just screamed, wow! that was easy!

Breath New Life to Old Car Stereo

2015-12-29T18:58:00.000-05:00

I have a 2005 vehicle that the CD player is going bad, but has no auxiliary input. The car stereo is factory form fit design, so it's going to look ugly if I replace it with an after market. Even if I get another factory fit until to replace the broken one, it's going to be expensive and doesn't have the Bluetooth I like. This is the solution I found to modernize it for under $20.

This nifty little find is cheap, charges the iPhone with fast charger (2.1Amp), will be able to receive the Bluetooth from my iPhone and rebroadcast it as FM to the stereo. It's very cool. Hope you enjoy my little find.

Home or Small to Medium Business Network Attached Storage

2015-11-30T21:35:00.003-05:00

If you are looking to build a home, small/medium business Network Attached Storage (NAS), I would recommend that you move to use dedicated NAS hard drives.

My experience with using regular desktop hard drive using both Seagate and Hitachi drives have resulted in losing all 3 drives in a 3 drive RAID5 configuration.

This time around, I am going with Western Digital RED drives. I will provide more details after the drives have come in. For now, these are the drives that I believe is the most economical yet reliable for my needs:

WD 3TB NAS Hard Drive

Final Cut Server Clients - Updated to Work with Oracle Java

2015-10-15T00:10:00.000-04:00

Since 2009, many of us are still using Final Cut Server and trying to replace it, but many of us are still having a hard time finding something as powerful and at such a low price point, so we continue to use and appreciate this product that's ahead of its time.

The problem is that OS continues to be upgrade both on Windows and on Mac and Java continues to have security patches and updates.

Even today, January 2016, I'm still getting requests of getting Final Cut Server client to work, so I have decided to make this blog entry to keep occasional update status and provide a link to download working clients.

The following clients are working with:

Mac OS X 10.6 - 10.11 with Apple Java (see link below) with optional Oracle Java and QuickTime X

Windows with Oracle Java and QuickTime Player 7.7.3 works

Quicktime Player 7.7.3 with QuickTime 7.7.3 on Windows works
Quicktime Player 7.7.5 with QuickTime 7.7.5 on Windows fails

Mac Client requirements:

Apple Final Cut Server Client 2.0 (webstart dependency fixed by Moov It Broadcast IT Solutions, Java QuickTime component and SIP fixed by Meza Hsu at Virtue All Network)
Apple Java 6 for OS X 1015-001
Works with QuickTime X - QuickTime 7 is optional

Windows Client requirement:

Download (webstart dependency fixed by Meza Hsu at Virtue All Network):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/moa8sxqrqaoruui/FinalCutServer.exe

For Windows users, you will also need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x86 and QuickTime 7.7.x to be installed on your system for this to work:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8328

For Windows users, you will need QuickTime 7.7.3:

Windows QuickTime 7.7.3 (might need to reinstall after Java upgrade) - https://www.dropbox.com/s/y779ka8gbp0qfmh/QuickTimeInstaller.exe

Playback 23.976 FPS Sequence on Consumer Monitor (29.97 FPS)

2015-05-04T15:20:00.001-04:00

We have a playback problem in our workflow that I am sure it's not unique, but the answer might be hard to fine, so I'm going to document my findings here. Hopefully, it will help someone else.

Problem: We have 23.976 FPS (23.98 rounded up) source material, which plays back on our broadcast monitor just fine, since broadcast monitors can display almost any video signal you output to it. In almost all broadcast environment, we want to view the footage as the audience will see them, so we have a consumer monitor connected to our output device, but it will not display 23.976 FPS. This is because we are in the United States and consumer monitors can usually only display 29.97 FPS.

Solutions:

Using Video Signal Output Card: Add a Up/Down/Cross-Converter such as AJA's UDC Mini-Converter. It can convert 23.976 FPS to 29.97 FPS.
Using Adobe Premiere:

Connect your consumer monitor directly to the video card and configure Adobe Premiere to use it as the preview monitor.
Change the Sequence Settings > Timebase to "29.97 frames/second" instead of "23.976 frame/second".

Using Final Cut: You can select edit to be 23.976 FPS, but set the playback to 29.97 FPS.

Let me know if this helped you. Cheers!

Gift (people might actually like) Ideas

2014-12-17T23:50:00.000-05:00

I always rack my brains out trying to figure out what to get, so I thought may be I can jolt down a few of my ideas and share it. Gift giving gets harder as we grow older because we can always just buy what we want if we can afford it. Then there are those who seem to have everything already... then there are those who seems to have no interest in anything... anyway, if you can use some of these ideas just click on the picture and it will take you right to Amazon and Amazon might even give me some props. Feel free to chime in with your own ideas. I need them and I'm sure others too, so thanks! and Merry Christmas!

This is great for anyone with a car that has AUX, but no Bluetooth. It will allow you to stream music to your car stereo and take a call without having to hold the phone while you are driving. Starts around $25.

Don't know how true this is, but if someone is into all natural and chemical free stuff. This might be a good gift. It is suppose to release ions like the ocean when it's heated by the lamp naturally. That ion is suppose to purify air and be good for you. Most people feel refreshed having their face blown by ocean breeze right? Anyway, if none of that work, it's still a pretty cool looking lamp with cool textures and you can always lick it because it's salt. Starts at about $15 depending on how big of a rock you want.

If you got someone that's in the office all day, it would be nice to have a refreshing cold one when you feel the urge to hydrate. Who wouldn't want a mini fridge to do that with? When I'm talking mini, I'm talking about the size of a six pack. Technology wise it's also pretty cool. It doesn't use a lot of energy because there is no compressor involved just an electronic heat-sink, which can be reversed to produce heat to become a warm box. Now, the drawback is that it's not freezing cold, but cold enough to be refreshing. Another bounces is that you can use your car's cigarette lighter to power this on those long road trips. Around $50

This is a must for anyone that loves old school animation. All hand drawn and not 3D models. Particularly if you are a Miyazaki fan. This will probably be the last animation of his long career as an animator. It's around $25 for the Bluray.

This is the center piece of anyone who likes to tinker. It's the center of home automation. It doesn't lock you into it's own brand, but is open and works with many other brands. It's backed by GE and Home Depot and it's relatively cheap and easy to setup. You can continue to add different pieces to it as your own devices are worn out and are replaced with the more efficient and smart phone controllable new models. It works with iPhone, of course, and Android. It's around $50.

If you have a little girl like I do, I got one word for you, "Elsa!" Elsa anything with a combo of the crew from Frozen particularly Anna and Olaf. I saw a street full of Elsa this past Halloween and a whole stadium full of them when we went and watched Disney on Ice. Out of all the dolls, I like this one the best because it's more realistic and detailed than the other ones. Cost around $25.

For boys, I don't think you can ever go wrong with Legos. I'm personally partial to robots, but you can build anything you can imagine, which is the fun with Legos. I still enjoy building something with it and my girl is at the age where she can start building stuff, especially after watching The Lego Movie. Who doesn't wanna be a master builder? Starts around $20.

This is no ordinary Flash Drive. This is a new breed that even though it looks like a Flash Drive, it performs screaming fast because it uses SSD technology instead. Anyone that needs to carry data around will appreciate this gift. Cost $1 per GB

These things are really popular in asia. It's not that expensive and is an "eye witness" to a car accident. It's also sorta cool to watch yourself drive and good for those times when you wish you could take a picture of something happening on the road. Might even double as a GoPro type of camera if you can figure out how to mount it on stuff. Starts at about $17.

This is a must have for any digital photographer. What a pain it is to run out of memory on your SD card when there is great moment to catch forever on a picture to be shared. This cool little card will transfer your pictures wirelessly to your laptop or iPad (so they say, since I haven't tried it myself) while you shoot, so it's going to save you from wear and tear on the camera's SD card reader too. Sounds really cool and starts at about $22.

I think these are great. It lasts 22 years, it's dimm-able, it's LED (so use very little energy) and can be linked to home automation when you are ready for it. When you are not ready just use it like a regular LED bulb. The color temperature is 2700K, which gives a warm glow and it's only a little more expensive than other regular LED bulbs that only has on/off. The bulb itself also looks pretty cool. I like the ring of LEDs and the filament looking loop as the antenna and a splash of green to say this is energy efficient. Starts at $15 depending on how much glow you want.

Many people these days spend a lot of time in front of computer at work then on a tablet then on a smart phone then go home and watch some TV then back to the computer at home for a bit more. Next day, repeat. I know my eyes get tired and uncomfortable at the end of the day, but if these glass does what it claims to do, this would be an awesome gift for anyone spending lots of screen time. Starts at $15.

Fix Random Audio Problems When Using AJA Hardware and Adobe CC

2014-11-07T17:45:00.000-05:00

People who are using AJA Hardware like KONA cards or Io boxes with Adobe CC (including CC 2014) Premiere might be experiencing the following audio problems:

audio blending, pitch changing, noise, static, sudden audio lost, drop frames, robotic sounding, playback fine after pausing and restarting and other weirdness

The bad news is that it seems the solution is hard to find, but the good news is there is an easy fix for it and I think I figured out why.

Here is my hypothesis: when the system via the Operating System is set to use AJA hardware while Adobe Premiere is set to also use AJA hardware for playback then both are contending to control the device and steam audio for the device to render.

The solution is to set the system via the OS to use a different device so that it does not conflict with Premiere's playback device.

If you are using a Mac, following are the recommended settings that I got from AJA support on August 28, 2014.

System Setting:

System Preferences > Sound > Input > PCI card
System Preferences > Sound > Output > Audio line-out port

Adobe Premiere Pro CC (including 2014) Settings:

Preferences > Audio Hardware

Adobe Desktop Audio: Set for Built-in Output

Buffersize: 64

Audio Output Mapping

Map Output for: Adobe Desktop Audio

Preferences > Playback

Audio Device: AJA KONA LHe+ (in my case)

Video Device: AJA KONA LHe+

Within Video Device click on the word "Setup..." on your selected playback video device then under Video Format select "Match Sequence" and Buffer Mode: "Minimum".

This has solved our random audio problems, so hopefully it will help you with your situation.

What's New at Apple WWDC 2014

2014-06-02T17:58:00.002-04:00

I am very excited for what's coming down the pipe from the WWDC 2014 announcement today. I can't wait to use it. Here are some of my notes for those of you who want a recap without watching the Keynote video available at http://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2014/:

Yosemite

The next Mac OS X - available to developers today and available to everyone in the fall for free

Continuity - AirDrop transfer, Handoff (device aware of each other, so you can use the right device for the right job) Instant Hotspot (device aware of the phone to jump on the Internet), SMS can relay text messages and phone calls, Contacts can dial the phone for you
Interface - new translucent, cleaner, depth of field, typography, dark mode for video editor, unified interface design
Apps - enhancements to native Apple apps

Today View - Notification Center - built in today view and can be extended to supported 3rd party apps
Spotlight - screen centered instead of menu bar to maximize content and extends to search Internet not just local content - allows of instant and scrollable viewing of search results
iCloud Drive - now accessible in Finder, can store any file types and access files from other apps and accessible from iOS devices... encrypted Mail Drop for any size attachment within the limits of your storage size.
Mail - large attachment via Mail Drop, Markup automatically takes your markups and makes it nice and neat for annotations...
Safari - single bar for more content and cleaner design - integrated with your Bookmark and Spotlight - easy sharing of any website you are viewing, new privacy features, WebGL, SPDY, IndexedDB, JavaScript Promises, CSS Shapes and Compositing, HTML5 Premium Video (example stream Netflix 1080p video without plugin and get 2hrs more battery life while doing it), DOM performance, battery efficiency, optimized JavaScript compiler, smooth tab scrolling and tile view

iOS 8

The next OS for iPhones and iPads will run on device as early as iPhone 4S, but no earlier...

Interactive Notifications - pull or swap to respond immediately or flick to ignore
Double Tap - to see active apps and instant access to favorite people
Safari - Birds Eye and Sidebar View
Mail - swipe to get to other emails while composing new email
QuickType - predictive typing, context sensitive & learns your style and cane do multiple languages
Continuity, iCloud Drive, Spotlight - see above
Messages - group messaging, share location, tap to talk, instant group photo album
Enterprise

Device Enrollment Program - auto enroll, auto configure, auto install, etc. out of the box
Security - passcode protection, per-message S/MIME, VIP threads, Automatic Reply with Exchange, free/busy view, 3rd party document providers, manage books and PDFs...
Productivity

Health - comprehensive picture of your health via Health Kit and Health - you can control which apps can contribute to your matrix... example Mayo Clinic integration - can automatically notify doctor automatically when your health matrix is past safety levels
Family Sharing - auto share photo, reminder, calendar, find your device, locations, songs, movies, books, apps - up to six family members - app download will ask mom or dad for permissions on mom or dad's device before can download and/or purchase
Photos - photos and videos across all devices on iCloud (5GB free)... great search (using all data include time and location)... smart editing (auto image analysis for combination of brightening the photo and correct the color and available to all device at once)... will integrate with Mac later on in the year...
Siri -song recognition, new languages including Chinese
App Store - improvements overall (discover apps and search for apps), bundled apps for discount, app previews, send out free beta versions via TestFlight
SDK

4000+ APIs
Extensibility - allows apps to talk to each other while securely in their respective sandboxes
System Wide Keyboard - example can install 3rd party swipe type keyboard
Touch ID - available for 3rd party apps, but finger print is also locked locally
Camera APIs
Photo Kit API
Health Kit API
Home Kit API - allows for home automation
Cloud Kit
Metal - reduce overhead of OpenGL, get bare metal level graphics and compute, precompiled shaders, efficient multithreading, designed for A7, gaming console level graphics to mobile (10x graphics performance compared to before)
Sprite Kit - easy programming of casual game graphics
Scene Kit - 3D scene renderer for casual games, physics engine, particle systems, scripted actions

New Programming Language - Swift

A brand new programming language that replaces Objective-C (but can exist side by side for transition to the new language). It protects developers from common mistakes sometimes making it impossible to make those mistakes, does the same stuff with less lines of code, more speed (3.9x faster than Python), modern and interactive

Migrate to Fusion Drive for a Speed Boost

2014-03-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

The beauty of Apple's Fusion Drive technology basically put is to give a user the speed of SSD drives (typically over 400-600MB/s compared to 30-60MB/s) but with the storage capacity of traditional spinning disks (which in comparison is much cheaper than SSD). I have done this for my Mac Pro and my old Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro. It feels very snappy and the boot time is dramatically faster. This procedure can be done for any Macs running the latest Mac OS X. The technology is not caching. There are intelligence behind it to move frequently used files to SSD and less frequently used files to spinning disk.

There are lots of write ups on the Internet, but I noticed some guides do not utilize the entire capacity of the disks and some guides do not allow you to have a recovery partition. My guide is updated for Mavericks 10.9.2 and will give you both full capacity and also recovery partition. As far as I know, it's the closest thing to factory Apple Fusion Drive.

Two of the major questions I get asked a lot are, what if one of the drives fail? Am I not at a greater risk because I'm relying on two drives? The answer is fairly simple. First ask yourself, what would you do if any hard drives fail? When you "fuse the drives" together, essentially don't think of them as two drives anymore. If one of the drives fail then essentially the fusion drive has failed. You will have to rely on your backup to recover and rebuild it to a working drive. You are not at a greater risk just because you are using two drives. The only con that I see is that it's more complicated to setup in the beginning, but again you are not at greater risk because you are still only at risk of one drive failing.

What you will need:

Safe guard your data - do a full Time Machine backup or clone your drive using something like Carbon Copy Cloner.
You will need a traditional drive (more RPM the faster of course).
You will need a SSD Drive. I recommend at least 120GB. I also recommend getting it from OWC because they are fast, use quality components and a pretty close match to Apple's specifications.
Mounting brackets. You can get these also from OWC depending on the model and depending on if you are doing internal or external. There are kits for Mac mini, Macbook, iMac and Mac Pro.
A bootable external drive (either USB or Firewire) running the latest version of Mavericks (this can be the cloned drive from #1 above).

Step by Step to Migrate a traditional drive to Fusion Drive:

Again, have your original data backed up using one of the above mentioned methods.
Physically install a SSD Drive and a spinning disk that you are going to use for the Fusion Drive - remember a Fusion Drive is a logical drive made of two physical drives: a SSD drive and a traditional spinning hard drive.
Boot from the external drive running the latest version of Mavericks.
Launch Disk Utility and partition the two drives that you will be using. Name the SSD drive: SSD. Name the spinning disk drive: HDD. Remember, doing this will erase all your data, so if you are not comfortable with this then buy and use new drives for this purpose or rely on your backup.

Do a fresh install of Mavericks on HDD. You might have to download this again from the App Store again if you don't have it already saved in your Applications folder. You will install Mavericks twice, the first time (about 15 minutes, depending on your system) is to get the recovery partition on the HDD and the second time is to get the OS on the Fusion Drive. It's a better idea to put the recovery partition on the HDD because you rarely use it. This way you can conserve more space on the SSD for active files.

After installation is complete, reboot and hold down the option key to boot to the external hard drive. If you didn't get a chance to hold down the option key before the computer reboots then press command+s then click on shutdown. After the computer shuts down press the power button then hold the option key so you can select the external drive as your startup disk.
After you boot into the external drive, launch Terminal and type "diskutil list" to find the disk number given to it by the OS. I'm using a 120GB SSD and a 2TB spinning hard drive, for example:

macintosh:~ wisebyte$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *640.1 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_CoreStorage 639.3 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 650.0 MB disk0s3 /dev/disk1 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *128.0 GB disk1 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1 2: Apple_CoreStorage 127.7 GB disk1s2 3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk1s3 /dev/disk2 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk2 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1 2: Apple_HFS HDD 2.0 TB disk2s2 3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk2s3 /dev/disk3 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk3 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1 2: Apple_HFS SSD 119.7 GB disk3s2 /dev/disk4 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk4 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk4s1 2: Apple_HFS Maxtor HD 319.7 GB disk4s2 /dev/disk5 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: Apple_HFS Fusion HD *763.5 GB disk5

So, the two drives I'm using are SSD and HDD, so type "diskutil cs create Apple\ Fusion\ Technology SSD HDD" to combine the two drives into one Mac Core Storage logical drive named "Apple Fusion Technology." My example:

sh-3.2# diskutil cs create Apple\ Fusion\ Technology SSD HDD
Started CoreStorage operation
Unmounting disk3s2
Touching partition type on disk3s2
Adding disk3s2 to Logical Volume Group
Unmounting disk2s2
Touching partition type on disk2s2
Adding disk2s2 to Logical Volume Group
Creating Core Storage Logical Volume Group
Switching disk3s2 to Core Storage
Switching disk2s2 to Core Storage
Waiting for Logical Volume Group to appear
Discovered new Logical Volume Group "41279B95-BD78-4EF6-A3B9-1A3203C3917A"
Core Storage LVG UUID: 41279B95-BD78-4EF6-A3B9-1A3203C3917A
Finished CoreStorage operation

Now copy the Logical Volume Group ID (see LVG UUID above) so you can paste it later then type "diskutil cs createVolume 41279B95-BD78-4EF6-A3B9-1A3203C3917A jhfs+ Fusion\ HD 100%" to create the partition, much like what we do with new a physical drive in order to use it. The 100% tells the system you want to use all the space. You'll see something like this:

sh-3.2# diskutil cs createVolume 41279B95-BD78-4EF6-A3B9-1A3203C3917A jhfs+ Fusion\ HD 100%

The Core Storage Logical Volume Group UUID is 41279B95-BD78-4EF6-A3B9-1A3203C3917A
Started CoreStorage operation
Waiting for Logical Volume to appear
Formatting file system for Logical Volume
Initialized /dev/rdisk6 as a 2 TB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 163840k journal
Mounting disk
Core Storage LV UUID: 94C83C0B-E8C7-43E6-B7FA-68854DE9F80B
Core Storage disk: disk6
Finished CoreStorage operation

When it's completed, the drive is ready for use. Again, if you don't have the Mavericks installer you will have to download it from the App Store.
Install the OS, one last time, onto the new Fusion HD drive (you will need to click on the Show All Drives button) to find the Fusion HD icon.
After the installation is completed, we are ready for the migration. Make sure you have your backup drive plugged in. Follow the screen shots below:

After you are done with the transfer, shutdown and unplug your backup drive then hit the power button and enjoy the new SPEED! You can also test your recovery partition by holding command+R when restarting the computer.

Video Editing on Mac Pro (Late 2013 model)

2014-03-06T12:48:00.000-05:00

Mac Pro (Late 2013 model) has been re-designed to do 4K video from the ground up, but some people question the viability of continuing to use the Mac Pro as the video workstation that so many people have been using for so long.

In my experience, most of their concerns are actually people's interpretation of where Apple is going or not going with their technology. I have been having these conversation for a while, so I decided to just write a quick little blog about it and provide some Adobe CC benchmarks.

Decide for yourself if my points are valid or not. If you decide to use a Mac that's great and if you decide to not use a Mac that doesn't hurt my feelings either. Just don't do it for the wrong reasons.

Interpretation: Apple stopped their support for Xserve, XSAN and Final Cut Server, so that means they no longer care about the video market.

My Extrapolation: True Apple doesn't make Xserves and Final Cut Servers anymore, but they just released XSAN 3.1 (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1862). This move means they are not in the server market, but does not mean they are leaving the video market. Unless of course, iPhones, iPads, iTunes and Apple TV don't need video content then it would make sense that Apple doesn't care about the video market. Every Mac is shipped with iMovie. Apple revamped and continues to develop Final Cut Pro for the professional editors with specific features to address workflow issues. They just released a new Mac Pro that can do 4K video editing out of the box and works with 4 steams of 4K video in Final Cut Pro without dropping frames. ProRes CODEC is still one of the most efficient CODEC out there. Rumor has it that a new Apple TV has been in the works for a while. Just think, is Apple going to encode all the music and movies in the iTunes Store with HPs or Macs? What about Apple's trailer website (http://trailers.apple.com), they are all QuickTime and some trailers are Apple exclusive, do you think they are compressed using Macs or IBM or Dell? Also, do you know Apple has their own production house? I'm pretty sure they are using Macs. What about Apple's involvement with Pixar? Seems like Steve Jobs started that company dedicated to do 3D animations, which of course use Apple computers (http://www.businessinsider.com/pixar-uses-apples-mac-pro-to-make-films-2014-1). In WWDC 2014, they announce that the next OS, codename Yosemite, will have an option to change the over all look and feel called "Use dark menu bar and Dock" for media professionals. All these things taken together builds a strong conclusion that Apple is not leaving the video market. They are immersed and it's to their benefit to stay engaged and interested.

Interpretation: Apple's new Mac Pro is inefficient to run Adobe Premiere because it does not have a nVidia option and therefore can not use Adobe's Mercury Engine and unfit for video production.

Fact: First, Adobe is not the only game in town. We know the big three are Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere and Avid Media Composer, which all run on the Mac. As for Adobe, there was always the option of buying an after market nVidia card, which is needed for Adobe's Mercury Engine acceleration. With the advent of Adobe CC this is no longer true. Adobe CC can use OpenCL, which means you can use nVidia, ATI/AMD, Intel, etc. to utilize Adobe's Mercury Engine. This means the new Mac Pro will run Adobe CC with Mercury Engine acceleration. I have also done some benchmarking just to see some difference between the rendering speeds. See the results below for more detail:

OS: Mac OS X 10.9.2+ or Windows 7 64bit build 7601 
Software: Premiere Pro CC 7.2.1(4) and Media Encoder CC 7.2.0.43 set to 9GB RAM
Source: DPX Images Sequences and XDCAMEX 35 NTSC 1080 clip
Effects: Lumentri (Cinematic 1 and Dreams), ProcAmp, Sharpen, Color Balance (RGB), Gaussian Blur
Export Settings: H264 1080p 29.97 fps VBR 2 pass target 6Mbps - 50Mbps no audio

Total Footage Length: 2 minutes
Storage: scratch, source and destination are all read and written to SSD

(iMac is on spinning disk and result is only for contrast, so not graphed)
Graph: shorter results are better

My Interpretation: Basically, a stock $4000 Mac Pro is beating out the HP Z820 using a two minute clip. The Mac Pro is 50 seconds faster on CPU only render even though the HP has twice the number of CPU and twice as many cores as the Mac Pro. On the GPU test, the question that started all this is that currently there is no CUDA for the new Mac Pro. However, the 2 minute clip rendering CUDA vs OpenCL, the Mac Pro still came in 5 seconds faster (I have since got my hands on a D700 Mac Pro and the chart has been updated accordingly and performance is even more impressive).

We should be able to put to rest that you have to have CUDA in order to utilize Mercury Engine Acceleration. On a Mac Pro that also has the nVidia GTX680 that can do both CUDA and OpenCL on the same GPU, the results are that CUDA v5.5.28 was slower than OpenCL by 1 second. Since nVidia just released CUDA v5.5.47, I updated the CUDA driver and now it's 5 to 10 seconds faster on a two minute clip. I imagine if newer AMD/ATI drivers come out that should also increase the performance of OpenCL.

At the moment of writing, I don't think there is a vendor out there that sells a configuration that is faster than the new Mac Pro for a cheaper price.

Other benefits of using the new Mac Pro (Late 2013 model) are:

Xeon E5 processor instead of i7, this means server class instead of consumer class CPU
ECC memory, again this means server class instead of consumer class, which means less crashes due to transient memory errors
SSD on PCIe instead of SATA means even more bandwidth, which is needed for 4K workflow
Small foot print means it's easily transportable for those editors who need to edit close to location
Efficient heat dissipation design means almost silent operation, again important for video production since you want to hear ambient sound on your audio track not the noise of all the fans in your edit computer. It also means you don't need to buy an expensive noise reduction rack cabinet to keep your computer in - extra savings
Dual graphic cards - can connect up to three 4K displays and run four streams of 4K video - also great for any applications that can utilize multiple GPUs.

Here are a couple of helpful links to find out more about Adobe using OpenCL:

http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2013/06/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-and-gpu-support.html
http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2014/03/premiere-pro-cc-on-the-new-mac-pro.html
http://www.fireprographics.com/ws/mae/adobe/index.asp

As usual, let me know if this has been helpful to you. Enjoy.

Mavericks NFS vs SMB Implementation - Speed Test

2014-02-08T11:25:00.001-05:00

NFS vs SMB Speed Shoot Out!

Many of us who regularly use Macs have heard that with Apple's latest operating system, they have built a SMB2 compatible file protocol within the OS.

Naturally, many of us who connect to NAS file servers for our work want to know which is faster NFS or SMB? How much faster is the SMB1 vs. SMB2 implementation?

A related question is, what are the pros and cons of these protocols?

Well, today I decided to do a rough NFS vs SMB benchmark via EMC's Isilon and share the results with you. For what I have available, I could not isolate the storage traffic because our entire enterprise is using the NAS, but I did come in on a Saturday when no one is here, so the usage of the NAS and the network is at a minimum. Nevertheless, the results are useful to me and I believe you will find it useful as well.

Method

This is how I set things up for my test.

NAS = EMC Isilon NL-Nodes
NAS OS = OneFS v7.0.1.6
Client = Apple Mac Pro 2 x 2.4GHz 6-Core Xeon, 12GB RAM with Fusion HD
Client OS = OS X 10.9.2 build 13C48
Protocol = NFSv3, SMBv2, SMBv1
Test Application = AJA System Test v10.3.3
Just for comparison I also tested against a locally attached SSD and the original 2TB 7200RPM HDD that came with the MacPro.

Application Setup:

File I/O API: Machintosh
Enable Network Volumes
Simulate 1920x1080 8-bit video stream
Disable file system cache
Test Disk Read/Write
File size increments: 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048 MB

Results

As you can see using Mavericks SMB1 is significantly slower. NFS3 still out performs SMB2, but they are pretty close.

Pros and Cons

NFS - Pro: simple, fast and can deal with network interruptions | Con: not as secure and permissions are not as flexible

SMB - Pro: fast and secure | Con: can't deal with network interruptions and takes more permissions planning to set it up correctly

As usual, I hope this has helped you. If it did I would love to hear about it. Enjoy the fruits of my labor :-)

Best Configuration for a Mac mini Server Running Mavericks

2014-01-09T17:11:00.003-05:00

Part of the reason why most people have a server is because a lot of other computers connect to it, therefore more people depend on it, therefore you want to minimize downtime.

When buying the Mac mini server from Apple, it comes by default with two hard drives. However, Apple leaves it up to the buyers to chose what to do with it. Many small business I have helped buys the Mac mini server, but leaves the 2nd drive as data drive, but there is a much better option if you want more protection.

Here are the three options for your second drive:

use it as a data drive - default configuration
use it as a redundant drive - protection mode aka RAID1 or Mirrored (if one drive dies, the other drive keeps everything up and running and you won't even know that one drive died - if you replace the failed drive you will regain your protection of a drive failure)
use it as a performance drive - performance mode aka RAID0 (you will gain extra reading and writing speed)

For many, the best option is #2, so that's what I'm going to do for my server and I'll show you how to do it for your server. I'm going to show you how I do this for Mavericks server since that's what Apple is selling right now and since that's the server I purchased. The only draw back about doing this is that you will lose the recovery partition, which should not be a big deal. See Apple's Knowledge Base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4649 for more info.

What you will need:

A Mac mini server with two identical drives (default purchase configuration - doesn't matter if it's SSD)
An Apple ID Account.
An Extra External Hard Drive either Firewire or USB
Drive cloning application like Carbon Copy Cloner

Step by Step to Setup the Server with Mirrored Protection:

Hook up the new Mac mini server and go through the setup screens.
After logging in for the first time, launch the App Store. It will check the serial number of the computer to check entitlement. After it's done checking, you will have the option to accept the bundled OS X Server application and have it assigned to an Apple ID, so click the ACCEPT button.
Install the cloning application such as Carbon Copy Cloner
Plugin the external hard drive and clone the OS (typically named Macintosh HD) to the external hard drive.
After cloning is complete go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select the cloned drive then click on the Restart button.
After rebooting, launch Disk Utility from the Utilities folder then select one of the internal drives (should have the name APPLE HDD) then click the RAID tab then drag both of the internal drives into the big blank box under the RAID tab. Make sure the RAID Type is set to "Mirrored RAID Set" then click the Create button. See my screen capture below for reference:
After the RAID Set is created, quit Disk Utility and launch the App Store to download and install Mavericks to the new drive. On my Mac mini, I called my drive Server HD. When installing, you'll have to click the Show All Disks button to be able to select the RAID drive.
After the installation (about 30 minutes on my Mac mini server) is complete go through the setup screens again, log in and launch the App Store to install the Server portion. You'll have to use the same Apple ID of course to download and install it. At this point, you can also eject and put away the external hard drive.

That's it. You are done. You can now configure your server the way you like it and enjoy the protection mirrored drives.

I always like feedback, so if you like it and find it useful please let me know. If there is something else you are looking for, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Now, sit back and relaxing because your data is protected :-)

Safest Way to Migrate to iPhone 5c or iPhone 5s or Upgrade to iOS7

2013-09-18T14:25:00.003-04:00

Apple release iOS7 today... woohoo... I for one, am always excited about new technology and all the few features they bring. A few times I did not take proper precautions and lost valuable photos, movies, audio recordings, etc. Because of this, I decided to write a short and simple guide to help people not make the same mistake I made.

Luckily Apple provides us with tools that are very simple to use, so you won't need to fear that it's going to be complicated. If you are afraid that it's over your head, you can always make a free appointment to the local Apple Store with one of the Apple Genius Bar guys/gals. They will be happy to take care of it for you. For those who don't want to wait, here are the instructions.

Whether you are migrating to new iPhone or upgrading to iOS7, the first thing you want to do is backup your data. It's going to take some extra time, but your data is usually worth the wait.

Disable Sleep

Since the whole process might take a while, you want to temporarily disable sleep. Macs by default is set to save energy, so it will go to sleep after 10 minutes when there are no interactions with the user. A lot of times the upgrade and backup process will take more than 10 minutes, so that could corrupt the process (this is from my experience) if the computer goes to sleep.

Go to System Preferences then click on Energy Saver
Slide the Computer sleep timer to Never. You can change it back after you are done

Backups

Connect the old iPhone or iPad to your computer and launch iTunes
In iTunes under DEVICES click on your device icon
Now find and click Summary under iTunes' display
Scroll down to the Backups section
Under Automatically Back Up select This Computer, because this will be your fastest option. You can select iCloud, but that will be slower. You can also chose to Encrypt iPhone backup if security is a concern.
Click Back Up Now

Now, even if you are upgrading your iPhone you will want to upgrade your iOS on your old phone first then do the Migration because the new iPhone will come with the newer iOS, by upgrading the iOS on the old phone you will make the data compatible, which equals less issues.

Upgrade to iOS7

Just like the above, go to the Summary tab of your device in iTunes. After you have already backed up your data click on Check for Update.

iTunes will search updates available for your phone, when found click Download and Update

Migrating to a New iPhone or iPad:

(in my case, I'm upgrading my wife's iPhone 4s to iPhone 5c)

Just like the above, go to the Summary tab of your device. After you have already backed up your old device, unplug the old device and plug in the new device.
In the Backups section click on Restore Backup... button then select the latest working version.

That should be it. Enjoy the new iOS7! If this helps you, I would appreciate knowing about it. If I get a lot of feedback I might also create guides on some cool ways of using the new iOS.

Installing FFmpeg on Mac OS X

2013-01-31T15:34:00.003-05:00

Because of the need at work, I had to investigate various RGB to YUV color space video conversion tools. I have tested Apple's Compressor, Adobe's Media Encoder, Sorensen Squeeze, Telestream's Episode, FFmpeg, etc. Getting FFmpeg to work is no small task. Below is the way I understood it and how I got it to work. Keep in mind, you have to do all these steps in sequence.

Pre-requisites:

Here's the number one thing that people get confused about. Since FFmpeg doesn't have a PKG file, you are not going to be able to install it like a usual Mac application. Many open source projects only provides the source code and you will have to build the installer via command line, so the first thing you will need is Xcode, which is a free download from Apple's App Store.
The second thing you will need is audio codec unless you are strictly converting from video to video or image sequences to video. FFmpeg contains various video codecs, but does not contain any audio codecs, so if you are converting anything with audio you will need to get audio codecs installed and working first. The usual is LAME for MP3 related and FAAC or FAAD2 for anything AAC related.
Next (and the most obvious thing), you will need is the latest version of FFmpeg. At the time of writing, I'm using FFmpeg 1.1.1 "Fire Flower" and Mac OS X 10.8.2.

Let's get it working:

Xcode:

Launch Xcode then install Device Support as prompted then click Start Using Xcode.
In Xcode Preferences go to the Downloads section Components tab and install Command Line Tools.
Wait until you see "Command Line Tools Installed" then quit Xcode.

LAME, FAAC or FAAD2:

You can skip this step if you don't need audio, but if you skip you might have to recompile FFmpeg if you need it later. At the time of writing I'm using FAAD2 v2.7 ftp://mirror.ovh.net/gentoo-distfiles/faad2-2.7.tar.gz.

Using terminal go to the directory you downloaded FAAD2
run "./configure" command to configure the installer for your computer
run "make" command to make the installer
run "make install" command to install
run "make clean" command to clean up
run "faad -h" command and it should provide you hints on how to use it. This should also give you a clue that it's working.

FFmpeg

Go to the directory you downloaded FFmpeg
run "./configure --disable-yasm" command to configure the installer for your computer
run "make" command to make the installer
run "make check" command to confirm that things went okay
run "make install" command to install
run "make clean" command to clean up
run "ffmpeg -h" command to see that it's properly installed and see how to use it.

Congratulations! If you did everything correctly you should have a working FFmpeg.

Oracle Java Broke Final Cut Server Clients

2012-11-30T10:16:00.000-05:00

Update 10/10/2014:
This article is for historical purpose only, please refer to http://wisebyte.blogspot.com/2014/07/final-cut-server-clients-updated-to.html for the most up-to-date info.

Update 02/04/2013:
Oracle has released Java 7 Update 13, so no modification to Xprotect is needed.

Java 7 Update 13 - confirmed working with OS 10.8.2

Update 02/01/2013:
Apple marked Java 7 Update 11 as malware, so anything pre-Java 7 Update 11 is blocked and therefore stopped all Final Cut Server clients. My friend +Chun-Hsien Wu gave me pointers again to help restore functionality, so I wrote another application based on the info. to unlock/unblock Java 7. Here's the link to the app.: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckyo32fswxm4gym/Java%20Unblocker.dmg

You can confirm if it's working by going to: http://www.java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp.
You might also need to go back to the Final Cut Server landing page to re-download the client or use this version provided by http://www.moovit.de, which by passes webstart: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/71385283/Final%20Cut%20Server.dmg.

It worked for me, but let me know if it worked for you.

------------------ 11/30/2012
Java 7 Update 9 - working with OS 10.7.5.
Java 7 Update 11 - working with OS 10.8.2.

Let me know if you know any other versions that work.

If you have a need to revert back to Java 6 on your Mac, you have at least these two options:

Follow Apple's Guide: Java for OS X 2012-006: How to re-enable the Apple-provided Java SE 6 applet plug-in and Web Start functionality
Use my application: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/18srkg3ff3qxpsl/SSVxbyFRfd. The application will revert your Mac back to Java 6, but it will also allow you to install an older version of Java 7. For example, if Java 7 Update 12 doesn't work and you want to revert back to Java 7 Update 11, you can use my application to go back to Java 6 then reinstall Java 7 Update 11.

After you have either upgraded or downgraded your Java you might need to go back to your Final Cut Server landing page to re-download the Final Cut Server client again for it to work properly, so don't forget about this step.

------------------
Historical Reference Below:

Hey guys! Haven't posted in a while because I'm in job transition, but this particular problem is not easily fixed and affects a lot of people running Final Cut Server, so I decided to do my part to help the community.

Let's clear up the confusion first.

As I understanding it. Apple has been releasing their flavor of Java since the earliest version of Mac OS X, but now they have decided to go main stream. I guess Tim Cook is a bit more relaxed compared to Steve Jobs about not controlling everything so tightly.

Java 6 build 1.6.0.37 was the last Apple released Java via their Software Update service, but it's actually a Apple Java remover. It removes the existing Apple Java and puts a place holder for users to go to Oracle's site to download the latest version, which has now shift to Java 7.

The bad news is that Oracle's Java 7 Update 1 thru 8 DOES NOT work with Final Cut Server and there is not an easy way to revert this. I have been searching all over the place and nothing really worked or only worked half way. Lucky for me I had a Java Developer friend, Chun-Hsien Wu, that provided some help. This means that the latest Java build that I know works with Final Cut Server is Apple's Java 6 build 1.6.0.35. So, I decided to put together this to help revert it back to build 1.6.0.35 especially to help those using Final Cut Server.

The application will remove the new Java and replace it with the old working version and link everything back up.

Download the app from: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/18srkg3ff3qxpsl/SSVxbyFRfd

So far I have only tested this on my Mountain Lion machine.

Let me know if this helps you or if you have any questions.

Software Updates

2012-07-05T12:17:00.001-04:00

In my job, I have to keep track of software updates, but more specifically what changed and how to change some of the defaults for security reasons, so I decided to put this together for my own convenience. When I figure out how to quickly make tables within Blogger, I change it to a nice looking table. I'll be adding more as I go along. If this helps you, please let me know. I love to hear from you:

Any Apple Updates, http://support.apple.com/downloads/
Mozilla Firefox, click on what's new by the download link to find the changes
Video LAN, changes are listed with in the DMG under Goodies > NEWS

Mac Server Backup

2012-06-20T22:46:00.003-04:00

Carbon Copy Cloner Logo (c) Bombich Software

If you run a Mac server for your home or business, you NEED a backup! There are several backup applications available and there are several methods, all with its pros and cons. You need to take in considerations availability, security and your business continuity.

I have used Carbon Copy Cloner for years and it remains one of my favorites. I am going to list some of the reasons why I like it and I'm going to show you how easy it is to setup a backup schedule using it. I am also going to tell you how to test your backup, which most backup strategies have in writing, but never in practice. I am assuming you have a single drive to backup.

Reasons why I like it:

Apple's built-in Time Machine is great. It's simple and requires almost no setup, but a disadvantage is that you can't boot directly off Time Machine. Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) provides this ability.
It's extremely fast.
It allows backup across the network.
It allows scheduled backup.
It has fast block-level disk-to-disk cloning.
The backup does not need any special software for you to retreieve the files. Just plug your backup to any Mac and you can access your files right away. Keep in mind, this also means that any one stealing your backup drive will have all your data.
It's free - but I recommend making a donation if you use it to support the author's hard work and continue development.

Setting Up Your Backup:

First you'll need a few things: a hard drive that will be used as your backup drive or destination drive. It needs to have a bigger (or at least the same) capacity as your server's hard drive or source drive.

You'll need to format your destination drive using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or buy the drive pre formatted for Mac. Most drives purchased from the store are formatted FAT32.

You'll need to download CCC from Bombich Software http://www.bombich.com/index.html. You'll need to put CCC in your Applications folder.

After you have what you needed. Here are few simple steps to setup for a daily backup.

Launch CCC from your Applications folder.
Under Source select your server's boot drive or main drive. For this example, my drive is Maxtor HD. See Fig. 1.
Under Destination select your backup drive. For this example, my drive is FreeAgentPro. See Fig 1.
Under Handling of data already on the destination: select Temporarily archive modified and deleted items. See Fig. 1.
After the selection we want to save these settings and schedule it to occur everyday, so click the Schedule this task... button. See Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 - click for larger view

Double Click on Untitled to name this Nightly Backup. See Fig. 2.
Under Start at put in the time that you would like to start the backup. For this example, I'll schedule for 1AM in the morning. Now, click Save to schedule this job. See Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 - click for larger view

It's going to prompt for a local administrator Name and Password to make sure you have the permission to do this. Put your credentials in and click the OK button. That's all. See Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 - click for larger view

Testing Your Backup:

This is a very important step that needs to be done periodically, which most people neglect to do until they need their backup. Instead of crossing your fingers and hoping that you have a working backup, lets test it to confirm. It's very simple:

Go to System Preferences
Click on Startup Disk
Select your backup drive
Click Restart
The server should boot up as normal, except it's booting from your backup instead of your main drive. Login as usual and confirm that all your critical data are accessible.
Now repeat steps 1 to 4 and select your main drive in step 3. Don't forget to do this or you will be working from your backup instead of your main drive.

Let me know if this helps you! Happy Computing!

MacBook Pro Screen Blinking

2012-05-21T16:02:00.002-04:00

Solution to fix your blinking, flickering or flashing MacBook Pro.

Some of my clients are reporting that their MacBook Pros are blinking, flickering or flashing when attached to an external monitor. There are a couple of fixes I found for this depending on the machine you have:

MacBook Pro without Thunderbolt:

I recommend turning off onboard video while you are on power supply. Again depending on your model, go to System Preferences > Energy Saver > uncheck Automatic graphics switching while you are connected via your power supply to enable your video card and disable your onboard video. Just remember to check the box again when you are on battery power to prolong up time.

MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt

I discovered that for some reason Apple Software Update doesn't automatically install this for some needed machines, so you will have to do this manually. Download the Thunderbolt Software Update 1.1. Here is the link: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1476.

Both of these fixes have worked for my clients. Let me know if it worked for you.

Apple Server Wiki Service Migration

2012-03-22T15:34:00.001-04:00

Lion to Lion:

Great information from Apple on how to migrate Wiki from Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server or Lion Server to Lion Server. It seems now they are using more sophisticated methods in Lion for more capabilities and speed, namely POSTGRES engine. Woo hoo!

Here's the link to Apple's write up: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5082

Lion to Lion Migration:

Instructions for migrating from Lion to Lion is incomplete. Following Apple's instructions will only get your the text portion of the Wiki, so anything other than text like pictures will be lost, so before you do anything do the following first (assuming you have a drive named Backup):

On your source Lion server backup the Wiki FileData:
sudo cp -R -v /Library/Server/Wiki/FileData /Volumes/Backup/tmp/FileData

Then follow the instructions for "Copying all wikis from one Lion server to another" guide, but do not perform the last step:
sudo serveradmin start wiki

Restore the WiKi FileData:
sudo rm -R -v /Library/Server/Wiki/FileData
sudo cp -R -v /Volumes/Backup/tmp/FileData /Library/Server/Wiki/FileData

Now you can perform the last step and start the service. After the service starts your wiki should look as before:
sudo serveradmin start wiki

Let me know if this helps you.

Apple Software Update Stuck Fix

2012-03-20T14:24:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when running Apple Software Update it gets stuck or it takes forever. Most of the time it's because of the following two things:

Antivirus Blocking Installs

Symptom: This is usually the case when Software Update is stuck (blue progress bar not moving forward after a long time) and when you launch Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor and see your anitvirus program having high CPU utilization.

The fix: If this is the case force quit your Software Update then reboot. After reboot temporarily suspend your antivirus program then click Software Update to see if that resolve the problem. Don't forget to re-enable your antivirus after you are done. While you are at it, make sure your antivirus signatures are up-to-date.

Update Cache Corrupted

Symptom: This is usually the result of impatient users who does not allow Software Update to complete, which will result in incomplete or corrupted downloads.

The Fix: 1) Quit all your applications 2) Force quit Software Update, if it's running and stuck 3) Launch Applications > Utilities > Terminal 4) put in this command to clear out the cache: sudo rm -R -v /Library/Updates 5) put in this command: to reboot the computer sudo shutdown -r now 6) after reboot try Software Update again.

Let me know if this helps you.

Finally, Lion 10.7.3 Working with AD

2012-02-13T14:00:00.001-05:00

For everyone out there who have been waiting for this, including myself. I have just tested Mac OS X 10.7.3 and it is now showing Active Directory accounts. This was not working in my tests from 10.7 to 10.7.2.

A few of things to keep in mind:

When upgrading it's best to download the 10.7.3 Combo rather than letting Apple Software Update do the updating. This will save you lots of bandwidth anyway, if you have more than one to do.
Mobile Account is handled differently compared to previous versions of Mac OS X. When using network accounts, such as AD, it defaults to the network and not cached locally. If you want to have it locally, it will create an encrypted User Home Directory via File Vault, so do a few tests and get familiar before deploying.
What about the install media? Since Lion is integrated to the Apple App Store, you will probably have to get the OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive and/or volume license if you need to deploy to many workstations. The good news for home users is that just like iTunes purchase, you can have it installed up to five of your computers.

Finally, computer users can start taking advantage of iCloud and all the bells and whistles of Lion.

For a review of some benefits of Lion, check out this review by Mac World: http://www.macworld.com/article/161026/2011/07/osx_lion_review.html.

Enjoy! As always, if anything I've put up here helped you, drop me a word.