Comments for jimmitchell.org

Comment on Clean Up Your WordPress Database Collations by business

business — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:31:17 +0000

Thanks for this excellent site….this is one best of sites!

Comment on Yasu 2.6.8 Final Released by Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:56:54 +0000

Great news, James. Glad to hear I’ve found the cache removal mojo again…

Comment on Yasu 2.6.8 Final Released by James

James — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:45:55 +0000

Thanks, Jim! I just saved an additional 2 GB over a 2.6.7 run made just a week ago!

Comment on Secure Virtual Memory on OS X by Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell — Sun, 30 May 2010 05:20:59 +0000

Eventually I was able to get my MacBook Pro replaced with a brand new unit. Lucky for me it was just after the new i5 & i7 processors came out, so I ended up with an upgrade. One bummer is I lost my 7200 RPM drive from the BTO option, but I’ve not had a single problem with the new unit. So yes, a good end result, but it took a lot of grief to get there.

Comment on Secure Virtual Memory on OS X by Greg

Greg — Sun, 30 May 2010 03:32:37 +0000

I had a similar problem with my 2009 MacBook Pro – it was crashing at random with kernel panics, but mostly when I had a lot of apps open. Turned out to be a problem with RAM, which I diagnosed by using Apple’s Hardware Check and also with Rember (which doesn’t need a reboot). The tricky thing was that it was an intermittent problem – so if I ran the check after turning on the computer it would be fine, but if I did it straight after a panic it would usually report the bad memory.

Fixed the problem by dropping into the Genius bar with the diagnostic report, and that swapped the laptop for a new one, just in case it was the motherboard and not the memory modules that had the problem. I hope you had a similar happy ending!

Comment on Clean Up Your WordPress Database Collations by Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:14:39 +0000

I’d have to agree with you there, James. Editing via SQL queries can be so time consuming for more than just a few changes, and one wrong query can ruin your whole day (or database).

Comment on Bogart WordPress Theme Updated by Tweets that mention Bogart WordPress Theme Updated | jimmitchell.org -- Topsy.com

Fri, 07 May 2010 02:09:11 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jim Mitchell. Jim Mitchell said: Post: Bogart WordPress Theme Updated http://bit.ly/9lZOwH [...]

Comment on Clean Up Your WordPress Database Collations by James

James — Tue, 04 May 2010 07:20:01 +0000

Thanks for the mention, Jim! Call me old-fashioned (or not), but I’ve always felt that altering my database by editing a backup in a text editor was easier (and safer) than the direct command line method.

Comment on A Stylish Treat for Mailplane Users by Josh Davidow

Josh Davidow — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:51:14 +0000

Jim, you are the man! I have been irked by the ads showing up in Mailplane forever. Finally, Gmail looks like it should. Pat yourself on the back for me and everyone else not being marketed to every time they open their email.

Comment on Yasu 2.6.7 Released by Tweets that mention Yasu 2.6.7 Released | jimmitchell.org -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Yasu 2.6.7 Released | jimmitchell.org -- Topsy.com — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:37:56 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Daniel East, Daniel East, Floris van Lint, Jim Mitchell, Macberry and others. Macberry said: RT @yasumac: Yasu updated to version 2.6.7 http://bit.ly/9ebbqI so ähnlich wie cccleaner nur fuer #Mac Ein Musthaveapp for Macosx [...]

Comment on Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner by Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:57:45 +0000

As a follow-up to this, after trashing prefs, the machine ran okay for about a week. Then late last week, it started acting up again, and wound up with all sorts of disk errors Sunday morning.

I took the MBP to my local Apple store that afternoon, and they replaced the HD on the spot (very surprised, and very pleased w/ the service — thanks to genius Gary). Though I cloned my entire system back in hopes it was entirely hardware, I woke the unit this morning & got a kernel panic. Fortunately, this time it did not cause disk errors as others have in the past — so some progress was made with a new drive.

I have one more sneaking hunch as to the culprit, and will know by tomorrow morning. If it’s not fixed when I wake the machine from sleep then, I plan to clone again, wipe the HD, install fresh and then move work over, but start with fresh installs of all apps & such.

A major pain, but I think I’m close to having it solved (I hope). More to follow…

Comment on Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner by James

James — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:27:49 +0000

Thanks for letting us know how you fixed it! I guess I’ll be adding “move the Preferences folder” to my short list of troubleshooting steps.

Comment on Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner by Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:43:38 +0000

Well I’m happy to say the simplest of all fixes did the trick. It was a bad preference file causing my headaches, and nothing more. It’s been so long since I’ve had to really focus on Mac support that I forgot that was one of the Apple recommended troubleshooting steps.

After 3 days of a clean set of user prefs, not a single spontaneous logout on wake. The Apple Genius didn’t even think of that as a fix — maybe he thought I’d been so thorough in everything else, I must have trashed my prefs too. I dunno…

At any rate, as a reminder to all — if you’re having funky issues try moving the contents of your user prefs folder aside & creating them all new.

I am now rejoicing…

Comment on Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner by James

James — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:45:59 +0000

I hate software issues. After years of professionally fixing Macs, mostly with software issues, I now follow a simple kill/fix-all mantra.

Verify with Disk Utility. If it finds a problem, repair it and rejoice.
Run Yasu with everything checked. If that solves the problem, rejoice.
Create a new admin account. If the problem does not exist under the new account, start fresh or move everything over piece by piece until you find what caused the problem.
Re-format and restore from a backup. If that solves the problem, rejoice.
Re-format and re-install OS X. If the problem does not exist, start fresh or move everything over piece by piece until you find what caused the problem.

Believe it or not, if you’re short on time, I recommend proceeding directly to step 5. It works every time, unless it’s actually a hardware issue.

Comment on Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner by Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:22:40 +0000

My Genius Bar visit left the Genius somewhat perplexed. He and I both agree it seems like a software issue, but I’ve eliminated nearly everything I could think of, and that he rattled off his list of “did you’s” and then some.

The drive in my unit is the Seagate ST9500420ASG with the latest firmware update. Lots of people had troubles with this drive before the firmware updater came out. Not so much afterwards. I’ve never had the “beeping” & “clicking” that others reported myself.

I have one more thing to try before I completely wipe the machine and start over. I’ve trashed the “ByHost” preferences in my user account, which contained a monitor plist file due to hooking up my external 3rd party monitor I have. I’m wondering if that plist (looking for an earlier driver) could be the culprit. Only time will tell.

If that doesn’t do it, I’ll create another user account with no add-ons to work in. If that doesn’t do it, it’s a zero of the drive, and reinstall fresh with a minimal system (no add-ons). If THAT doesn’t do it, well then it’s gotta be hardware and I’ll turn the unit over to Apple to try to fix. I’m hoping it doesn’t have to go that far.