Walt’s Desktop – Page 2

Unicode and the Copyright Symbol

Here’s how I solved the copyright character being changed to an invalid Unicode character block on source control commits.

I ran into an interesting problem with the copyright symbol recently: ©

The symbol appears in the comments of a number of source code files that I work on. And I was noticing that using Subversion‘s difference tool was complaining that my editor was producing an invalid character. The © symbol was changing to that familiar rectangle that says the character is invalid.

I’m using two editors, Notepad++ and IntelliJ Ultimate. I trust both to do the right thing.

Using Cygwin, I was able to dump the file and see what was going on.
$ od -ctx1 filename

In the original file, the © symbol was rendered using 0xA9 (ascii 169). This byte was in that magical 128-255 block, and under certain conditions, with the right code page and font loaded, it would appear as ©, though in many others it would just appear as an invalid character block.

However, if I removed the offensive byte and replaced it with the copyright character, a dump showed something more UTF-8 looking, a byte pair for the character: 0xC2 0xA9

Subversion’s tool then rendered the character properly, as well the compilers and editors working well.

OS X: Incomplete and partial files

Grey folders inaccessible from Finder? OSStatus error -43? Incomplete or partial folders? Here’s what I think is causing them and quite possibly what you can do about them.

I recently bought a Drobo FS with a lot of storage to keep a lot of my photography and other files backed up, redundant, and available.

Even with a “small” source drive, pumping the data to the Drobo at high speed can take a while. This isn’t the fault of the Drobo, nor the network, it’s that there’s just a lot of stuff to push through the pipe.

But I ran into an odd problem, and I haven’t been able to get a good answer as to what’s happening. This is a call to geeks.

The problem is when a copy operation fails.

This could be because one rebooted the Drobo during a long copy operation, one rebooted the machine during a long copy operation, or, more likely, OS X Finder just aborted for no good reason and rather than allowing one to try the operation again, resume, or skip the problem area, the whole batch stops.

TIP: It can sometimes be better to have multiple (concurrent but blocked) copy requests that were individually initiated, than one mega-copy operation. Finder seems to like smaller sized chunks, plus if something goes wrong, there’s less to deal with.

What you end up with is a situation that’s hard to describe without seeing it. It’s a destination directory that look like this:

The folders appear as grey.
The folders can not be selected or opened from Finder.
The folders do not have the little triangle icon by them.
The folders can not be renamed from Finder, but can from Terminal.
The folders can be copied, but they copy as grey.
The contents of the folders can be seen using Terminal.
If you use Finder to copy over them, it sees the name in use and makes a similarly named folder with a number after it.
The source files are not in use.

The question is, then, how to ungrey the folders and finish the copy?

So far, I haven’t found a way.

At the moment, I’m speculating if this is related to kFirstMagicBusyFiletype, kLastMagicBusyFiletype, or kMagicBusyCreationDate as shown in the Finder.h header.

Remember, if I have to delete the directory (which can take a while â€” if it can be done), and then re-copy everything again (which will take a long while), and still not be certain that copy will complete, it’s a huge investment that may not pay off.

Geeks, I know what you’re thinking — I thought it too:

Was the source drive clean?

Yes. I do a Disk Utility check on my source volumes before copying from them.

Was the destination drive clean?

Yes. I do a Disk Utility check on my destination volumes before copying to them. In the case of the Drobo, I had just formatted it, using the latest firmware, and its dashboard gave the all clear. I even peeked with their sshd application.

Did you check the file permissions?

They’re clean with the regular 700 permissions. Finder’s Info concurs.

# ls -ableO@dFGinpqT *

863913 drwx------ 3 501 501 - 264 Feb 13 19:09:02 2011 NormalDirectory/

863912 drwx------ 3 501 501 - 264 Feb 13 19:09:13 2011 WhyIsThisGrey/

What happens if you delete them with # rf -vrf badDir?

Sometimes that works, actually. Other times the delete command just hangs indefinitely, like the file is busy.That said, using the Path Finder shell, this is what you get if you attempt to delete a directory that’s acting up.

Any idea what an OSStatus error -43 is? Or why they’d be an invalid path inside the destination directory?

What about extended attributes? Type? Creator?

They’re clean, too. Verfied by Path Finder, stat, xattr, and /usr/bin/GetFileInfo.

# stat -x *

File: "NormalDirectory"

Size: 264 FileType: Directory

Mode: (0700/drwx------) Uid: ( 501/ wls) Gid: ( 501/ wls)

Device: 45,12 Inode: 863913 Links: 3

Access: Sun Feb 13 19:09:02 2011

Modify: Sun Feb 13 19:09:02 2011

Change: Sun Feb 13 19:09:02 2011

File: "WhyIsThisGrey"

Size: 264 FileType: Directory

Mode: (0700/drwx------) Uid: ( 501/ wls) Gid: ( 501/ wls)

Device: 45,12 Inode: 863912 Links: 3

Access: Sun Feb 13 19:09:13 2011

Modify: Sun Feb 13 19:09:13 2011

Change: Sun Feb 13 19:09:13 2011

# xattr -l -v -x NormalDirectory WhyIsThisGrey

(nothing returned)

# /usr/bin/GetFileInfo -a -tcdm *

# /usr/bin/GetFileInfo -a NormalDirectory

avbstclinmedz

# /usr/bin/GetFileInfo -a WhyIsThisGrey

avbstclinmedz

No Extended Attributes, according to Path Finder

What happens if you rsync?

Doing an rsync appears to work, but doing it to the “broken directory” does not fix it after it completes.
# rsync --progress -aPE source destination

Further Thoughts

I found an article that suggests there’s a lot more going on with the file system than most of us give credit for. It talks a lot about the importance of meta data.

More Metadata That I First Thought

Two blog posts, The State of Backup and Cloning Tools under Mac OS X and Extended Attributes led me to playing with the xattr and mdls commands.

xattr didn’t have much interesting.

$ xattr -l SomeGreyDir com.apple.FinderInfo: 00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 |................| 00000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................| 00000020

The mdls command presented a better clue. Check out the kMDItemFSCreationDate attribute.

$ mdls SomeGreyDir

kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2011-02-20 14:02:19 -0500

kMDItemFSCreationDate = 1946-02-14 03:34:56 -0500

kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""

kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0

kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0

kMDItemFSInvisible = 0

kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 0

kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0

kMDItemFSLabel = 0

kMDItemFSName = "SomeGreyDir"

kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0

kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 501

kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 501

kMDItemFSSize = 0

kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""

A quick romp through my incomplete folders revealed they all had a magical creation date of 1946-02-14 03:34:56 -0500.

The solution I think I need

I’m looking for a way to locate files with the kMDItemFSCreationDate
attribute set to that magic value, and then change it to whatever is in the
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate.

My suspicion is that this will let Finder, and the Apple command line utilities,
consider the file isn’t busy anymore.

My take on the (OS X) App Store so far

The App Store … it’s Terrific, Average, and Awful all at the same time.

I’ve been asked a few times now what I think about the app store. Never before has a feature scored terrific, average, and awful all at the same time for me. Here’s the break down.

What’s Terrific
Apple has made the integration as sweet and easy as System Update, with a trivial installation process that just works universally.

But that’s not the part that has me whistling Dixie — it’s that applications no longer use serial numbers nor do they phone home, instead they use cryptography. Nothing to pollute your network traffic. No software failing validation checks on a plane unable to reach a server.

And, given that I can now run software I paid for on machines owned by me, that’s a big win.

Plus, it unifies the Apple-culture a bit more in that upgrades work the way you expect: you don’t have to always reach for your wallet or buy stupid subscriptions.

What’s Average
The user interface, while simple, still isn’t hammered out in that perfect design that ever-so-well fits the problem space that Apple’s known for. For instance, under certain circumstances, buttons don’t behave the same way potentially causing one to purchase an unexpected item.

The store is missing a CONFIRM button before purchases, a CANCEL button as it’s happening, and more importantly a RETURN UNOPENED if it gets to the doc.

Many apps that have been acquired from other means don’t show up as INSTALLED, making for a very bumpy upgrade path. Others work just fine. Hopefully that will stabilize in the future.

What’s Awful
Some apps are dumbed down in terms of functional restrictions of the features we know and love due to Apple’s Terms of Use. There’s also fears of rejections by Apple, in addition to dealing with the approval process that still doesn’t feel completely worked out or entirely equitable between similar applications or that could be considered competitive.

Browsing the App Store, one notices the gross lack of a Genius mode.

Plus, while there are supposed to be a bazillion apps out there already, only a small handful appear to be browseable. This raises concerns that a popular app may drown out a cheaper and better competitor. Hopefully there will be more ways to slice and dice the browsing experience.

However, two major complaints are still outstanding and pretty valid.

One is that most of the apps on the App Store are crap — the easy distribution mechanism has flooded the market with apps of low interest of quality. It’s like when everyone published a flashlight app for the iPhone, and iFart was the talk of the town. For the historically minded, it was like when Atari opened its console system, and while it had the most game, only a handful were worth playing. Hopefully the rating system will help this problem. In the meanwhile, each ugly app drags the reputation of the App Store down a notch; unless the ratio reverses, the App Store will take on the same appeal as a yard sale.

Two is that many of the apps are priced in ways that don’t make a lot of sense. Someone produces a fantastic game, and it’s a dollar or less. Someone else produces a horrible looking monstrosity and charges $19.95 for it. The costs don’t reflect the features or quality. And, while good in the short term, and just the short term, we may see a plunge much the way that most iPhone apps cost 99 cents.

TheFlip: files in the root directory? Come on….

Were you aware that the Flip video camera you have is writing stuff to your root directory?

I’m using a Flip UltraHD on OS X 10.6, and while I’m happy with the device, I’m not so happy with FlipShare, the software that comes with it.

While the device when mounted (/Volumes/FLIPVIDEO) has a DCIM directory that has the standard video subfolder(s) 100VIDEO. Inside there are all the .MP4 files that work as-is with the Mac.

While the FlipShare seems to be over kill for accessing files in this directory, I encourage anyone with this device to go open Terminal and take a peek at your root directory. Yes, your root directory.

$ ls /

You’ll find a file, /logFile.xsl there, which appears to take an XML file for FlipShare and convert it into an HTML file.

My question is this: Why is FlipShare installing user files to the root directory? This is a horrible practice, most certainly a violation of Apple recommendations, and it’s down right tasteless in Unix parlance.

Cisco, you know better than this. Come on…! Fix this.

Caution – the new Mac App Store just bit me

Be VERY careful when using the Mac App Store — here’s how it purchased an app without my permission, along with THREE simple things Apple could have done to fix the problem.

Admittedly, I had my skepticism about how an App Store was going to fair servicing applications to the desktop.

The majority of Mac users seem to quickly grasp dragging an icon to a folder or double clicking the installer; the “hard” part is unzipping a file or opening a disk image file. But perhaps there is a target audience that still has a hard time of installing apps and keeping them up to date.

The downsides I expected were the less obvious things: Apple wanting a chunk of each sale resulting in trickle down inflated prices (though for the moment quite the opposite seems to have happened), certain established apps getting marketing preference due to historic purchases rather than innovative replacements getting visibility, the fear of embedded application ads becoming mainstream in the Mac culture, etc.

I saw up sides too, with copy protection and serial number issues going away. This of course had other down sides, such as apps having to check in with the Internet. I figured this meant a lot more problems for the publishers than the end consumers.

Seems I was wrong about that. I just got bit by the App Store.

I made my first Mac App Store purchase today, and in order to do so I had to authenticate. And, I’m happy to report, the purchase process works exactly as described — the application was downloaded and installed seamlessly. Go Apple!

I then decided to see if there was an update to Aperture, which I had commercially bought. Sure enough, when I went to its page, it said it was already Installed. Clever. Well done, Apple.

This is where things start to get weird. Non-Apple applications, like Coda, which I had externally bought and purchased a while back correctly showed up as Installed as well. This was nice.

But, then I noticed that a packaged I had already purchased, had a license and receipt for, and was already installed, OmniGraphSketcher, was in the App Store, too. It did not show itself as installed. And, wanting to see if it was a newer version, I clicked on it — and next thing I know, the App store begins to purchase it.

Fundamentally the problem seems to be that the purchase button behaves differently whether or not you’re authenticated. Plus, you’re two pixels away from Copy Link / Tell a Friend from an actual purchase.

For me, it was an unexpected $30.00 hit to the wallet simply because the buttons didn’t behave the same way they had a moment ago. That’s just not right, especially not from Apple who studies user interfaces with the same passion you or I crave oxygen.

While I’m screaming, “No, no, no, NO, NO!!!” at my machine, which doesn’t help by the way, I was taken aback that there was NO CONFIRMATION process, nor was there a CANCEL option, nor was there a RETURN UNOPENED option.

Bad Apple, bad.

Because I had previously authenticated for a prior application, it blindly assumed I authorized this purchase. That’d be like buying one item in a store, and after the cashier touched your credit card, anything else you picked up in the store would get bought too.

I’ve just written to Apple at http://www.apple.com/support/mac/app-store/, and we’ll see where that goes.

UPDATE: Got a very kind email from Apple who credited me the correct amount, but for the wrong line item. I sent them a follow up because I want the right developer to be paid.

If this is an indication of how Apple will deal with application purchases in the future, we can all breath a happy sigh of relief. My own hesitations about exploring the App Store have been lightened. Plus I know never-ever-ever touch anything that looks like a price tag button, instead click the icon which doesn’t look clickable.

Parallels and Ubuntu 10.10 boot issue

Ubuntu’s graphical environment stopped working under Parallels after an upgrade. Turns out the Parallels Tools was incompatible with the newer release. Here’s how I fixed it.

I recently ran into a problem upgrading to Ubuntu 10.10 in Parallels. The graphical interface (runlevel 5) wasn’t coming up after the reboot, instead I was getting the command line version (runlevel 3).

When I booted Ubuntu, I got a message stating that /media/psf could not be mounted.

Here’s how I solved it.
This tip gave me insight that the problem was an old Parallels Tool that was incompatible with the newer Ubuntu.

Ubuntu gave a preference for skipping the mount (S) or booting manually (M) to fix it. I booted manually, went to the /etc/init.d directory, and moved the prltoolsd to another directory to get it out of the way, and then rebooted.

# mv /etc/init.d/prltoolsd ~myaccount
# reboot

Parallels then let me boot in safe graphical mode. On the desktop was a virtual Parallels Tools volume, already mounted.

I opened up the terminal to a bash prompt, changed to the directory with the Parallels install script, and ran it with the remove option, then rebooted again:

$ cd ‘/media/Parallels Tools’
$ sudo ./install -r
$ sudo reboot

GNU Grub came up and I booted back to the generic kernel. Things were back to normal.

WIth the latest version of Parallels installed, and the old Parallels Tools uninstalled, I was able to open a Terminal, sudo to root, and install the new version of Parallel’s tool. Apparently the incompatibility has been resolved.

Where’s my JDK?

Caught in the Java depreciation battle under OS 10.6 and can’t find where the Java Development Kit (JDK) now resides? Here’s a command that will tell you, allowing you to still use InteliJ and other IDEs on OS X.

There’s a lot going on with Java at the moment. Oracle acquires Sun, putting the language in squarely in hands that don’t inspire trust; the same thing happened with MySQL. Meanwhile, the Apache Software Foundation quits the Java SE/EE Executive Committee. And now Apple deprecates Java, and the reason doesn’t appear to be what you’d think.

Starting with OS X 10.6.3 update, developers got caught in the back lash. Things moved on the file system.

Upgrading IntelliJ, the IDE was asking me where my JDK was, as it certainly wasn’t where the software, or I, thought it should be.

You won’t find the location using /Applications/Utilities/Java Preferences.app.

But you can find it with some digging. Thanks to this developer release note from Apple, the following command from Terminal will spew out some XML.

$ /usr/libexec/java_home –xml

Find the dictionary section that has ‘x86_64’ in it, and you’ll find an entry that has a ‘JVMHomePath’ with something like:

/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

You want to provide this full path to the IDE as where the JDK lives.

It’s worth pointing out that Apple recommends that if you install any 3rd party JVMs they should be installed in /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines or ~/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines.

Updates, please don’t do that…

Using a MySQL DOT-Net Conncetor and getting these error messages? Shared Memory Provider: No Process is on the other end of the pipe. Error 0. Unable to find the request .NET Framework Data Provider. It may not be installed. Or your login not working, but your password is right? Try this solution.

Using Visual Studio 2010, it’s possible to use MySQL databases. The trick is to use the MySQL DotNET Connector.

Everything was going swimmingly until for what appeared to be no reason, until one day I went to work on my project and I started getting a strange error message for what appeared to be no reason.

Shared Memory Provider: No Process is on the other end of the pipe.
Error 0.
Unable to find the request .NET Framework Data Provider. It may not be installed.

Exploring the exception shows that a connection to the database is made, but the login has failed for the username. However, the username and password work when logging in using the MySQL client. No drivers have changed, and MySQL works with all other applications just fine, just not the Microsoft development IDE. The connection string validated in a test environment, as did a raw connection with the MySqlConnection. EntityFrameworks, not so much.

Attempting to use EntityFrameworks from VS2010 results in an error dialog box that when dismissed goes back to the database wizard that brings up the dialog box again; the only way out is using Task Manager and violently killing the IDE’s process.

Attempting to use the .MySQL .NET/Connector installer to repair the installation doesn’t help, either. Yes, it updates the .dll files, yes it tweaks the registry, but no, it doesn’t help.

Making a new project and creating a new ADO.NET Data Model reveals something interesting: the MySQL providers are not listed anymore in VS2010.

The solution is to UNINSTALL the DotConnector and then re-INSTALL the same MySQL .NET/Connector.

The full installer indicates that it updates the VS2008 and VS2010 development environments. Trying the IDE again works perfectly. The ADO.NET Data Model shows the MySQL Data Provider, the Entity Frameworks doesn’t get stuck in an endless loop, and my code worked again without change.

What happened to cause all this? Turns out I had installed a minor VS2010 hotfix service pack at the end of the weekend. The result? The update silently uninstalled all non-Microsoft data providers.

Updates, please don’t do that…

Clearly, I’m not happy about that. Especially since it did it silently. If it told me that it was going to, or if it asked me to reinstall after the fact, I could live with it.

Uninstalling Intego Software

I’d rather eat an orange then brush my teeth with peppermint toothpaste than deal with cleaning up my system after using Intego’s software. If anything can bring the Windows reboot experience, coupled with the leaving of software cruft, to the Mac platform, this software does it in my opinion. Here’s how I finally got rid of it all. I hope.

I recently purchased a Mac bundle with software and it included software from Intego, consisting of the Personal Antispam and Personal Backup applications. I installed them, and from that point forward it was an experience I’ve regretted and have been trying to undo. Only now do I think I’ve made some progress toward that goal.

Frankly, I didn’t get what the backup software did for me over many of the free solutions out there, and while the personal antispam look intriguing, it was intrusive as well and I decided to fall back to Apple’s spam filter included in Mail.

Even if a product doesn’t make it into my main line of recommendations, I often will keep it around in the event I suddenly have use for it. This, for example, is how TypeIt4Me eventually won me over.

Intego went out of their way to annoy me straight from the start. How so? Every time I went to install a package from them, they felt the need to do what appeared to be a gratuitous reboot. It was like being on frickin’ Windows. And they had to install their own update manager, which had to take a glory spot in the menu bar. And it had to do updates, which required even more reboots. I was done with them at that point, but don’t even get me started on the subscription scheme that rode on top of the atrocity.

So I wrote to them asking them how to uninstall their software. Here’s the reply I got:

Proper removal of the software package requires using the Installer package located in your software bundle or disc. If you have manually attempted to remove the software, you will need to first, reinstall the software again, then use the same Installer package to properly remove the applications.

If you need to, you can re-download the installer for Internet Security Barrier X6 using the link below:

http://www.integodownload.com/en/isbx6.html

Open the installer and select to uninstall all software. Restart your computer.

Great, another reboot. Lucky for me, I hadn’t tried to go off on my own path, plus I had the original installation utility. I tried it, and it appeared to work.

Notice I said appeared?

One week later, LittleSnitch pops up and reports my system is spontaneously trying to access Intego’s update service for the very set of applications that, for all evidence I could tell, I removed and forgot about. Apparently, no so.

LittleSnitch also reveals it’s TaskManagerDaemon who’s trying to deal with Intego’s NetUpdate buried in /Library/Intego. Thank you LittleSnitch, curse you Intego.

Intego leaves cruft. Running cruft. Seems this isn’t new of them, according to Apple archives.

Part of the Mac culture is being a good citizen. In my opinion, I feel they aren’t.

After uninstalling the software in exactly the manner they prescribe, enter this this command at your terminal:
sudo find / -name Intego -print

I suspect you’ll develop a similar facial tick as it starts returning output after scanning your disk.

Go grab a root shell, you’re gonna wanna also wipe out:

/Library/Intego and everything below it.
/Library/Application Support/Intego and everything below it.
/Library/Preferences/Intego and everything below it.
/Users/wls/Library/Application Support/Intego and everything below it.

Oh, and you’ll want to Reboot as well.

…it’s not like I had other applications up or was doing anything important.

After the reboot, you’ll notice tons of console messages from launchd. Now you need to do this.
$ launchctl
launchd% remove com.intego.task.manager.notifier
launchd% remove com.intego.netupdate.agent
launchd% exit

And, you’ll need to remove some .plist files:
$ sudo rm -v /Library/LaunchAgents/*intego*
$ sudo rm -v /Library/LaunchDaemons/*intego*

And preferences, frameworks, keychains, and widgets:
$ sudo rm -vrf /Library/PreferencePanes/NetUpdate.prefPane
$ sudo rm -vrf /Library/Frameworks/IntegoiCalFramework.framework/
$ sudo rm -v /Library/Keychains/Intego.keychain
$ sudo rm -vrf /Library/Widgets/Intego\ Status.wdgt/

Reboot again.

UPDATE (12-Dec-2010): I’ve been in contact with Intego Support, support@intego.com, and they were kind enough to provide this extra information:

If there is anything left on your computer, you can remove it manually.

Can you please go into the following areas on the computer and delete any traces of Intego or VirusBarrier:

/Macintosh HD/Library/Intego
/Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Macintosh HD/Library/LaunchAgents
/Macintosh HD/Applications
/Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences
/Macintosh HD/Library/Logs
/Macintosh HD/Library/Receipts
/Macintosh HD/Library/Startupitems
/Macintosh HD/Library/Widgets

Home Folder:

~/Library/Application Support
~/Library/Preferences

They were right, there’s logs, too.
$ sudo rm -rf /Library/Logs/NetUpdate/

Review: Walt gives Intego software installation TWO thumbs down. The reasons are obvious.

Bang for Buck

Think that extended trial periods hurt sales? Think again.

There’s a wonderful application for the Mac called TypeIt4Me that does instant macro expansions as one types. I first learned about it at a No Fluff Just Stuff technical conference when some of the presenters were using it to give some slick presentations.

I’m a big believer in try-before-you-buy, and have long advocated using the 30/30/30 model for generating sales.

Here’s evidence that my bang-for-buck ratio was pretty low:

The problem? At the time, I just couldn’t find just the right need for it within my own workflow. But you can see, I kept it around.

However, because the software didn’t shutdown and lock me out, which would have gotten it deleted, it was there the moment I had need. And, Ettore Software got a sale.