Tag: Apple

Files Gone on Drobo FS with OS X Lion? Get ’em back!

Using DroboFS and OSX Lion only to discover that your Drobo shares have no content!? Yikes! But fret not, you merely have a small corruption problem brought on by the firmware, and in moments you can force a rebuild of that database and all your files will be back safe, happy, and sound with no data loss. Here’s how.

I recently updated my DroboFS to firmware 1.2.0 and dashboard 2.0.3 when I switched to Lion, and while my volume mounted there was no data in it although the Drobo lights showed there was capacity, as did the Drobo Dashboard, and the health reports indicated everything was just fine.

I spoke with Drobo Tech Support that indicated this was a known problem they are actively addressing as high priority; the problem is with Lion and their firmware, and we can expect an updated firmware release.

What’s curious about this is that if one uses the Finder and mounts the Drobo drive with SMB, using smb://Drobo-FS/, the files are there. However afp://Drobo-FS.local/ and cifs://Drobo-FS.local/ mount but reveal nothing.

A detailed description of the problem is at the article entitled: “Missing” Data (AFP) and/or CNID DB Errors. This article then leads to a second one, but is only for the brave.

Using Dropbear (SSH) with Drobo FS to regenerate the AppleDB (CNID DB) has detailed steps for regenerating the apple database.

Walt’s More Verbose Directions

  1. Using the Drobo Dashboard login to your Drobo as Administrator.
  2. Unmount all shares.
  3. Under All Devices / Settings / Admin you’ll want to check the Enable DroboApps setting, which will mount a volume entitled DroboApps on your system.
  4. Download a copy of DropBear from the Drobo Apps page.
  5. Unzip this .zip file, resulting in instructions and a compressed dropbear.tgz file . Move the dropbear.tgz file to the root of the DroboApps directory.
  6. Restart the DroboFS by going to Capacity and Tools in the Dashboard, and selecting the Tools drop down on the right side, and selecting Restart. Or, just power off the unit physically for 20 seconds and then turn it back on.
  7. When Drobo restarts, go to the Dashboard and select All Devices / Settings… / Network. Note the IP address given to the device somewhere.
  8. From OS X’s Terminal enter the command ssh root@theIPaddressAbove
  9. The default password is root, unless you’ve used Dropbear before and followed the instructions within it.
  10. Enter the command ls /mnt/DroboFS/Shares to view a list of shares on the drive.
  11. Tech Support promises the following will not cause any data loss, but anytime you’re doing reconstruction you should always have a backup (if you don’t, question your backup policy), and double check before hitting return. For each share of yours listed above, enter the command: rm -r /mnt/DroboFS/Shares/yourShareNameHere/.AppleDB and press return. Note the period indicating it’s a hidden directory.
  12. Exit Terminal by entering exit.
  13. Using the Drobo Dashboard unmount all your shares, which should be just the DroboApps share at this point; this is under the All Devices / Shares and you just uncheck all the boxes.
  14. Restart the Drobo again (see above if you’ve already forgot how).
  15. And just as important restart any Macs connected to the Drobo.
  16. When the Drobo comes up, start the Dashboard, and test the mounts. They should be working.

Apple Magic Mouse Sleeping on Win7

My bluetooth Magic Mouse kept falling asleep. Here’s how to keep it away.

My Apple Magic Mouse was “falling asleep” on me in Windows 7.  Found this post that told how to resolve it.

1. Click on the “Bluetooth Devices” blue icon in the system tray (you’ll probably need to click that little UP arrow first) and choose “Open Settings” from the menu.
2. Under the “Hardware” tab of the resulting dialog, select the “Apple Built-in Bluetooth” device and click the “Properties” button on the lower right.
3. Under the “General” tab in the resulting dialog, click the “Change Settings” button on the lower left (it has a shield icon on it)
4. Under the “Power Management” tab in the resulting dialog untick the “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” checkbox.
5. Press OK, OK and OK.

But for me, the Hardware tab was located under “Dell Wireless 573 Bluetooth Module with AMP.”

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.

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.

The problematic BUY button.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.

Apple’s Discussion Boards

An amusement – notice how many of the Apple discussion threads report “2 Helpful, 1 Solved” and not only is the issue unsolved, but often there aren’t even three messages in the thread. Something’s broken, and apparently Apple doesn’t care.

I find it annoying that many of the the Apple Discussion Boards that I browse show “2 Helpful, 1 Solved” as the status to the message threads.

And it’s not that just it has this status wrong, but that often there aren’t even three messages total in the topic.
Apple Discussion Boards: Helpful 2, Solved 1

I’ve reported this problem to Apple in the past, but it’s been ignored for years.

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.

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.

Competitors?

An opinion piece: are Apple and Microsoft competitors? This line of reasoning says no.

Who made the spoon that you used to eat your breakfast cereal this morning?

Every once in a while I’ll hear people talking about how Microsoft and Apple are competitors. As someone who’s technology agnostic, I don’t see the world in such shades of black and white. Here’s my reasoning as an outsider comparing the two.

Apple is a hardware company, their goal is selling as many units of whatever as possible, whether it be computers or mp3 players. With a focus on design and user experience, backwards compatibility takes a back seat to form and functionality. They excel at elegance and minimalism. They aim sharply at the home user. Disposability is ok. The next big thing is the future.

Microsoft is an operating system and business application vendor, their goal is to put that software on to as many pieces of hardware as possible. They are an industry leader in office applications and software development environments. They aim sharply at business and government. Backwards compatibility is highly important. They’d run on toasters if they could.

Is there overlap between the two? Sure, some. Is it a make or break difference? Not really, much is a matter of preference and familiarity.

I twitch anytime I hear someone say OS X is more “intuitive” than Windows; the word they’re looking for is consistent. Coarse application design is more similar, meaning once you get over the learning curve, subsequent new challenges have a ring of familiarity.

But more importantly, are the two environments mutually exclusive? Not at all. That’s why platform agnostics run both systems. Some things are just easier to do in some environments than others.

The operating systems wars and the phone wars are about luring people toward purchasing something from that camp. But look closer. MS-Office runs on OS X, and quite nicely. Safari and QuickTime run on Windows, and quite nicely. Once you’ve made the purchase of their crown jewel, the fighting appears to stop.

Users, on the whole, don’t care (and often don’t understand) about the underlying system. They just have a problem they want to solve, learn how to do it once and without change, and any tool that gets the job done will do.

Just like my spoon.